


All Secrets Become Dark

by jovialien



Series: Iantowood [4]
Category: Torchwood
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-19
Updated: 2012-08-19
Packaged: 2017-11-12 11:56:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 39,694
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/490648
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jovialien/pseuds/jovialien
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>See notes - Spoilers!</p>
            </blockquote>





	All Secrets Become Dark

**Author's Note:**

> Jack may be gone but it is still the 21st Century and Torchwood needs to be ready. It's been almost a year since the Hub was destroyed and the work to restore Torchwood continues. But as Ianto Jones' still new team faces their greatest setback yet, will it prove to be a blow too far for the young leader to take?

Monday 08:05

Doctor Martha Milligan Jones, or Jones Milligan or just Jones – or even Mrs Milligan depending on her mood and the cover needed – stirred in her sleep, an old nightmare flaring through her mind at the realisation of a strange form in her bed.  Her half conscious mind mistook the arm wrapped lovingly over her side as holding her down, holding her back.  Her brain began piecing together mismatched fragments of thought and sensation and putting them together into something else, something so wrong.  She struggled against the arm, pushing it away, flinging herself forward-

With a jolt Martha woke up as she hit the floor, the thud of her landing muffled by the thick carpet and the soft woollen cover that had at one point been on the bed.  Looking round she could see the innocuous lines of hotel furniture; the room was all tasteful creams with dashes of colour in the curtains and furnishings only.  But it was the view she could make out through the half open curtain that drew her eye, the horizon her focal point as she controlled her breathing, shaking off the last lingering traces of the nightmare.

Cardiff bay.

She let her fingers sink into the fibres of the carpet and listened to every sound around her, reassuring herself that this was real.  Finally she looked over her shoulder at the bed, the white hotel sheets still slightly crisp as they half hid the sleeping body that had been wrapped around her, causing her nightmare.

She couldn’t help thinking that there was something very wrong when the presence of her husband in her bed gave her nightmares instead of comfort.

Tom Milligan shifted slightly in his sleep, adjusting to her absence, but didn’t wake up.  She could see the shadow of the stubble on his face, a constant feature of long hospital shifts and late nights casting half his face into darkness.  For a moment she felt a flash of anger that he hadn’t even noticed she was gone, that he wasn’t awake and comforting her, making sure she was okay.  Part of her wanted to wake him, to make him take her in his arms and tell her it was okay, it was all going to be okay.

But after remembering the previous nights row, she wasn’t so sure she wanted him to.

Martha rose to her feet and walked silently across the luxurious room, her fingers tracing over the half opened curtains.  Tom had adjusted to this weird compulsion of hers well, not minding that she had to have sight of the sky at all times.  He had teased her about it but she had never been able to work out how to tell him why it was.  A whole year of her life that never really happened, that she could never share with him.  

A secret that was tearing them apart.

She watched the sun that was starting to come up over the city and felt a chill run through her as her body adjusted to the cooler temperature of the room, her nightgown too thin on her body.  But she didn’t move, instead she watched the sun shining over the city that had become her second home far too easily.  It was going to be a beautiful day.

Martha turned away from the sunlight hitting her body, watching her husband instead.  Almost a year since their wedding and she had spent most of that time working, either with UNIT or Torchwood or both.  Whilst most newlyweds were enjoying each others company and decorating a new home or avoiding the expectant gaze of hopeful grandparents to be she had been living out of a suitcase and avoiding aliens.  

But Tom, he had been at home waiting for her, working at the Hospital, having Sunday lunch with her parents, teasing Tish about her love life and chatting about football with her brother.  He had been more of a part of her family than she had this year.  But now, fed up with her long absences at last, he had even taken the step of coming over to Cardiff to drag her away for a few days peace.  Just one week, that was all he had asked.

It was only Monday and already she was regretting agreeing.

Something caught her eye and she flicked her head back to the window, corn rowed hair whipping around her neck as she moved.  It had proved the most practical hairstyle for her busy lifestyle at the moment but she knew Tom didn’t like it.  Maybe that was why she hadn’t taken it out yet, even though it was starting to annoy her too, just to be stubborn.  

She couldn’t see what had drawn her eye and was about to shrug it off when a low rumble seemed to fill the air, just the lowest bass note vibrating through her body, so gentle she could almost believe she had imagined it until the champagne glasses they had abandoned last night began to ring with it too, a soft tinkling filling the air as they hummed together.  Martha placed her hands flat on the window glass, feeling the buzzing in her palms as she frowned, trying to work out what was going on-

When the glass shattered under her touch Martha didn’t scream or even move.  Instead she let her body go rigid as she froze in place, eyes shut fast as she could feel the prickle of the rounded chips of safety glass hitting her bare skin and falling to the floor around her feet.  She could hear Tom yelling behind her but still she didn’t turn, didn’t speak or even lower her hands, her eyes shut tight until the last sensation of the glass and vibration had passed.  

Opening them just slightly she took in the view again and could see the water in the bay surging out from a point just fifty meters or so off the dock.  When the plume of smoke shot up through the water, whatever fire there was behind it steaming as it was almost instantly extinguished, she looked round, fixing her gaze not on Tom who was trying to ask her what was going on but instead on her pager lying peacefully on the bedside table.

A second later it burst into life and she sighed deeply.  So much for the vacation.

***************************************

Captain John Hart stifled a yawn and glanced at the time yet again.  Almost clocking off time as the UNIT grunts called it, although he had never quite worked out why.  Stretching out a latex sheathed hand, he picked up a blob of organic material from the small plastic tub and ran it through the scanner, ignoring the traces of dust over it.  Working through Sunday nights would be most peoples idea of hell but he actually enjoyed it.  Besides, what else was he going to do on a Sunday, go to church?  Although as the sun was starting to rise up top even he had his limits.

“How many more boxes to go?” he asked with a sigh.

“So far?”  Agent Johnson, recent defector from one secret government department to another less secret crown department, glanced around her at the boxes and shrugged, quickly counting through the piles.   “Twenty three but the night crew have another stack for us for tomorrow night so about 40 I think.”

“Bloody Jack.  Why did he have to explode so messily and keep us cleaning up after him for months?”

“To be fair, it's not like I gave him a choice,” Johnson answered with a wry grin before picking her own piece of shrivelled tissue from the pile.  It was far too small for the big box but, when none of the individual pieces had showed signs of regenerating they had started a theory that there was a certain size or critical mass needed to trigger growing a new Jack.  It was probably a ridiculous idea but one they didn't want to accidentally prove right.  So individual boxes for each piece of what might be Jack.

It hadn't helped that Myfanwys fridge had also been blown up in the explosion, spreading prime meat across the hub.  She had already found more pieces of chargrilled beef rib mixed in with rubble and the occasional piece of human rib than she would like.

“Yeah,” John sighed tiredly, “remind me not to piss you off.”

“I do,” she pointed out, “every time you break into my flat.  One of these days-”

“You'll what?”  John pushed his cheap wheeled office chair back from the small scanner on it's cheap wooden table and rolled closer to her.  “Spank me?”  Licking his lips slowly, he leaned in closer to her.  “Whip me?  Chain me up?”

“Don't tempt me.”  Turning back to her work she placed the piece of flesh under the scanner and pressed the button to start the scan, frowning at the way the table was wobbling.  She thought she had fixed that...  “I have enough trouble resisting shooting you as it is.”

“Yeah right,” John said, tapping his hands flat against her table and making it shake, “the only thing you can't resist is-”  John never got the chance to finish the sentence as something hit the back of his head.  The last thing he saw was the edge of the table rushing towards him as a loud rumble filled his ears.

*************************************************

Lois Habiba tapped her fingers against her thigh nervously as she rode the lift down towards the hub, the sight of the stone walls flashing past her in the dark making her all too aware that she was basically in a steel cage suspended over what felt like a never ending drop.  She hated this lift.  She always wanted to hold her breath until she got there safely, as though if she dared to relax it would make the lift break, as though her willpower was the only thing keeping it going.

“Calm down Lois,” she whispered to herself quietly and forced herself to blow out a long breath, relaxing the hand gripping the handrail just a little.  “Nearly there.” She was early, but she couldn't sleep  and this way she could get some work done on the artefact backlog. Not to mention the chance to see Johnson and John before they clocked off.  

She would never admit it,especially not to them, but they were both so unlike anyone she had ever worked with before that she found them fascinating.  And the openness of their casual relationship was...  intriguing.  Blushing a little, Lois tried to banish the thought of the way John looked at her. She would never take him up on his offer but the flirting was fun and it made her feel strong, desirable.  Brave enough to cope with this place anyway.

Well, except for the lift.

The rumble was barely noticeable over the noise of the lift but the lurch as the cage scraped against the wall made her scream, dropping to crouch in the corner, her breathing rapid as she felt the cage begin to buck, still dropping down but banging against the walls.  It was almost as though it was shaking within the channel.

“Oh, shit.”  With a lurch the lift clattered to a halt, the emergency override kicking in a moment before the whole shaft vibrated with an intensity that made the cage shiver around her crazily.  Throwing her arms over her head Lois screamed and huddled in the corner, her long held phobia that lifts were dangerous being proved correct, big time.

Sometimes she hated being right.

***************************************************

Ianto Jones smiled politely at the girl behind the counter, watching her carefully load up the coffee order into carry handles and bags for him.  He was “suited and booted” as his dad would have put it and looked like just another office worker doing the early morning coffee run.  The fact that he was still in charge of the coffee even though he was now the boss didn't worry him at all.  Simple truth was, it was the one task he didn't trust anyone else enough to delegate it to.  Besides, it gave him an excuse to be late in occasionally or pop out for a walk when the job got him down.

Picking up one of the bilingual Welsh/English leaflets on the counter, advertising the coffee shops impeccable environmental record, Ianto scanned through the Welsh side, testing his newly developing language skills.  Welsh.  He hadn't formally learnt it since school but after what had happened he and Gwen had made a point of brushing up on it.  

It had proved a useful secret to share, although admittedly most of what they knew so far was basics, a few favourite phrases (including pet names for all the team) and some swear words.  It was hard work, but with so many different agencies “helping” them get back on their feet having something just theirs had been a godsend in keeping certain things secret.

Plus it annoyed the hell out of John, and that alone was reason enough to keep up the lessons.

Tucking the leaflet back into the rack, Ianto looked up as the final two coffees were slipped into the bag and slid across the counter to him.  Nodding to the girl, he was about to pick up the bag when a soft rattling filled the quiet coffee shop.  He looked round, expecting to see one of the other youngsters with a tray of glasses or similar clinking together but there was nothing.  Turning back, he followed the girl's gaze and realised that it was the shelves themselves that were shaking, mugs and glasses rattling together.  A moment later he felt it, a low rumble through the soles of his shoes that felt almost like an earthquake.

The bang was muffled, the sounds somewhat deadened by the buildings around them, but it was definitely an explosion and more than enough to make the serving girl scream and drop to the floor.  There had been far too many bombs, earthquakes and unexplained things in Cardiff now for any of its residents to be complacent about that sort of thing.  Including Ianto.

Dropping to a crouch, Ianto watched the glass of the windows carefully, searching the skyline for any trace of smoke.  The slightest wisp peeked over the edge of a building and he quickly got his bearings working out where it had come from.  It was definitely the direction of the bay.

What were the odds of it just being a harmless coincidence, actual terrorists for once, maybe some sort of accident or generally something that he wouldn't have to deal with?

Sighing, Ianto grabbed his phone as it went off, not even needing to see the number on it to know what it was about, knowing that a response that fast had to be the automatic alarm at the Hub calling everyone in.  It was definitely his problem.  

Just another mad Monday in Cardiff then.  

Rising to his feet, Ianto looked behind the counter to the girl, nodding to her reassuringly.  “You ok?”  At her nod, he smiled softly, grabbing the coffee and heading towards the door.  “I'd stay put if I were you for a bit, just give it time to calm down outside, you know what the roads are like when this sort of thing happens.”  

Pausing at the door, he yelled back over his shoulder as he left, satisfied that, whilst shaken, the kid would be just fine where she was.  Unlike his team when he got hold of them.  

“Oh and have some hot sweet tea, preferably chamomile, it will help.”

Letting the door slam back behind him, Ianto hurried to his car and shook his head. And he had had such a good weekend...

********************************************************************************************

“You’re not going without me, Martha, what the hell is happening out there?!”  

Martha wriggled on the safety of the bed as she pulled on her jeans.  She winced as a piece of glass she had missed dug into her hip before her deft fingers retrieved it and flung it across the room.  “Tom I don’t have time for this, I have got to go, it’s an emergency.”

“Exactly, so I’m coming with you.”  Tom was already in his clothes, the light blue jeans and dark t shirt looking rumpled under his jacket and, not for the first time, Martha envied him his speed in getting dressed.  “If this explosion took out all the windows round here there will be injured people and we have a job to do.”

“Right, you stay here and help the hotel staff and I’ll be back later-“

“Back from where?”  Martha stayed silent as Tom stared at her, watching her pull on her boots and look round the room for her red leather jacket.  “Martha, I have put up with a hell of a lot with this job of yours but this is ridiculous, what is so secret that you have to go but I can’t help?”

“It's military Tom,” she snapped at last, giving him a withering look.  “That means military discipline and military secrets and when I get ordered to go somewhere I go and...  Ugh, things you just don’t understand, okay?”

Rising to her feet she stormed across the room, her back to Tom, and his gaze fell on her bag, half opened on their bed with her mobile phone sticking out of it.  She had had the same phone as long as he had known her even though it was badly outdated.  The same phone and she was fiercely possessive over it, guarding it and keeping its contents hidden even from him.  The phone that held secrets she wouldn’t share with him.

He wasn’t even aware of his decision until the phone was in his pocket.

Martha turned around, her jacket on and her dreadlocked hair being flicked out from under her collar as she walked over the broken glass.  Tom could feel the weight of the phone in his jacket pocket and stayed silent, his brain frantically trying to come up with something innocent to say as she grabbed her bag, fastening it and hooking it over her shoulder.

Mistaking his silence for anger or even contrition, Martha stepped closer and placed her hands on his chest, looking up into his eyes.  “I’m sorry, I just have to go. But I’ll be back soon, I promise.  You okay to stay here and help out?”  Nodding quickly, Tom hugged her tight, pulling her to him so she couldn’t see the lie in his eyes.

“I’ll be right here.”

With a quick squeeze, Martha was gone, her quick strides across the room taking her out of his sight all too soon.  Shaking off his fear, he followed in her wake and headed down to the lobby, making straight for the reception desk and the terrified looking staff trying to keep everything under control.  Looking round him, Tom took a deep breath and let it out slowly, preparing himself.  It had been a long time since he’d done emergency trauma work; at least as soon as he spoke the magic word “doctor” these patients wouldn’t try to hide under their teddy bears.

Time to get to work.

*********************

Rhys Williams looked up from his desk as the radio turned to the news, listening out with half an ear for any traffic reports that might affect his drivers.  It was still early but he had had a couple of guys head out for long runs and they had already hit roadworks.  Bloody council, it was always digging up one road or another.

“We are getting unconfirmed reports of an explosion in the vicinity of Mermaid Quay.  There's no official word yet but we've had people phone in with reports of windows being blown out around the bay and smoke from the water but no visible source.  We will of course keep you up to date-”

Rhys swore loudly and threw his morning pastry down onto the desk, quickly grabbing a tissue to clean off his fingers.  An explosion in the bay, it had to be Torchwood related; either that or one hell of a coincidence.  He just hoped he could intercept Gwen before she heard and decided to head down there, with or without the baby.  

Dialling the phone, he leaned back in the chair and hoped that no one had been hurt, especially Ianto.  They had come so close to losing him, if anything happened now, especially with Jack away...  Plus the guy had been a real mate to them both lately, coming round to lunch just the day before and he was really cute with little Angharad, even offering to babysit her occasionally. 

Not that Rhys would let anyone from Torchwood ever be left alone with his child (except Gwen of course).  Trouble seemed to be drawn to them just as the rift drew aliens to Cardiff.  

Swearing as the call refused to connect, Rhys pushed back from the desk and grabbed his jacket.  He'd keep trying on his mobile but his only thought was to get to Gwen.

Preferably before she got herself and their daughter into trouble too...

****************************************

Ianto almost threw the coffees down onto the table as he hurried through the office, just a couple of the technicians in already and firing questions at him as he walked.  “Wait!”  Silent, they watched as he headed through to his office, disappearing within for a few minutes before re-emerging.  “Right, have you managed to find anything out?”

“Um...”  The young technician hesitated, running a hand through his fashionably long dark hair and exposing the slogan covered t shirt hidden beneath his lab coat.  “Well, Martha checked in already,” he started, his accent betraying a posh sounding English background and making him sound a bit like he belonged in a fancy boarding school still, “she's on her way down into the Hub via one of the back doors.  The connections with the Hub site have gone down but the last few seconds of readouts seem to register an explosion...”

“Or it could be seismic activity-” his friend pointed out, her blonde bob flicking about over her shoulders as she folded her arms, in what looked to Ianto to be almost an imitation of Gwen in spite of the gentle Irish edge to her voice.  “We can't rule that out.”

“Except that Martha reported what looked like steam and fire in the middle of the bay,” the young man pointed out, turning to argue with her fully, ignoring his boss.  “So an explosion seems the most likely-”

“Oh right, like an earthquake couldn't possibly trigger any sort of fire whatsoever-”

“Enough!”  Ianto held his hands up in surrender and rolled his eyes, feeling more like a babysitter than a manager.  The team that Gwen had agreed on from the Mr Copper Foundation were intellectually brilliant, there was no denying it, but also young and more used to hypothetical arguments than real world crises.  Closing his eyes for a second, Ianto took a deep breath and lowered his hands.  “Right.”  Opening his eyes, he hurried over to the huge glass screen against the office wall that they used for notes and shift information.  Rubbing a section clear of last week's stationery requests, he grabbed a pen and started writing.  

“We need certain information, now.”  Not looking around, Ianto pointed at the young man.  “You, what's your name again?”

“Edward.  Harrington.”

“Right, Harrington,” Ianto scribbled his name on the board and began writing notes beside it.  “You're analysing those Hub readings, I want a connection re-established as soon as possible, Martha and I will try to restore it from the bay end but I need you ready to find out what the hell happened.”  Underlining something, he glanced back over his shoulder at the girl.  “You, name?”

“Annabelle Carr.”

“Okay, I need you to get hold of Johnson's men and generally handle staffing, who is where and doing what and get every field agent who can get to the bay down there.”  Stabbing at the board with his pen, he glanced around the empty office with a frown.  “When the others get here, get them to grab jobs too.  I need someone to get hold of UNIT, see if they can send any help down here, usual protocols, muscle on the ground, cover story, medical assistance, the standard disaster package.”

Pausing he stared at the board and took a deep breath, trying to think of what else was going on.  “All standard experiments that can stay on hold are to be paused, anyone had any luck with rift activity readings yet?”

Shrugging, Harrington hurried to his desk and started pulling up the Hub readings.  “Nothing conclusive, so far we're still just plotting known occurrences after they happen.  We can't even detect the rift energy still, not without a new manipulator-”

“A simple no would have done,” Ianto interrupted, scribbling a few more tasks onto the board as they occurred to him such as checking CCTV records, confiscating any incriminating footage, ensuring their activity didn't make the local news and so on...  It suddenly dawned on him that they used to do all of these things with just their little team of five and yet now he had a whole staff swinging into action behind him.  So many things that used to fall to him he had to delegate now.  It was hard giving up control, to have to take the time to explain to others what needed doing, things that seemed so obvious to him it was hard to believe they weren't already doing them.

Taking an extra few seconds to try and think of anything else, Ianto stepped back from the board and nodded to himself.  “Okay, that should do it.  As people arrive get them working through the list, I'm going down to the bay.”  Tossing the pen casually onto the tray, he hesitated for a moment.  With Gwen on leave that left only him able to unlock the tourist information office entrance, so there was no question that he had to go to the bay, but he still needed someone to co-ordinate things up top if communications were down.

Looked like he was going to have to call in a favour.

“Sir, I've got some data coming through-”

“Print it off, I'll check it on the way.”  Ianto grabbed a coffee from the tray and hurried back into his office, quickly picking up the end of week report on their excavation progress from the week before and skimming through it, quickly confirming his suspicions.  Martha had apparently reported something going on in the middle of the bay.

Which, about a hundred metres under the surface, would be roughly where the excavation teams had got to in the tunnels making up the alien morgue last week.  And where he had ordered Martha's overeager replacement to stop work due to a potential hazard with one of the bodies in that section.  

He had a bad feeling about this.

Tucking the papers under his arm, he tossed a quick salute at the singed photo of Owen and Tosh stuck to his monitor and let a grin quirk over his face.  “How about sending me some good luck for a change guys?”  Turning away, he could feel the slight quickening of his pulse at the thought of what lay ahead and smiled grimly.  Work to do.

After he spoiled just one more persons morning...

*********************************************************************

Mickey Smith rolled over in the cheap hotel bed and reached out for his phone, pressing a button to silence his alarm.  To his confusion it didn't stop and he stabbed the button again before finally realising it was a call.  He had only got into the city with Tom just before the weekend and had been enjoying the city sights, revisiting old places he had been before and new additions; with the help of Ianto and John.  

Now there was a pairing he was never hitting the town with again.  Who would have thought a little guy like Ianto could drink like that?  Mickey had spent most of the previous day with a hangover and was only just starting to feel properly human again.  He should have time to recover though, he wasn't even due into Torchwood until midday to go through the new vehicle with the team.

So why was his phone ringing at this early hour?

Grabbing it, he checked out the number and groaned as he answered.  “Ianto, this had better be-”  Sitting up, Mickey ran a hand through his stubble and took a deep breath, listening intently, all business.  “Oh.  Yeah, sure mate, no worries, I'm on my way.”  Hanging up, Mickey shook his head quickly and looked for his trousers.  He had thought crashing at Sarah Jane's was crazy; his first working day in Cardiff and already the shit had hit the fan.

Sometimes he really missed the Doctor.  At least he was polite enough to wait until you were up and dressed before landing you in trouble.

******************************************************************************

Martha Jones hurried into the Millennium Centre, speeding past the confused reception staff and broken glass and making straight for the toilets.  With her scratched and cut face and dishevelled clothes she looked like just another one of the dozen or so tourists and shop staff who had gathered in the centre for company.  But she was on a mission of her own.

The Tourist Information office door had refused to open, the safety cut off having been tripped.  To get in that way she either needed someone to open it from the inside, Ianto or Gwen to override it up top, or for the sensors in there to pronounce it safe to get in.  Having helped set up the checks, she knew full well that wouldn't happen for at least fifteen minutes and every second counted.

So it was time for one of the back doors.

That was the one good thing about Torchwood being decidedly less secret; it was amazing how many businesses in the bay had offered discreet help.  From accepting deliveries, to discounts on food or even just a knowing smile, many of them had given their support in small ways.

And a couple had gone a step further.

Hurrying into the ladies, Martha quickly counted the stalls, pushing lightly against the doors until she found the right one.  To the casual visitor it was simply locked, whereas to the staff the out of order email they had received about the stall and “missing parts” had simply confirmed their low opinions of British workmanship.  

To the Torchwood ladies, it was simply known as “the little girls room” although John had nicknamed it “Martha's back passage” as she was the one who had arranged for its placement.  Grabbing her plain looking pass-card from her pocket, Martha took a quick glance around the bathroom before swiping it casually against the blank wood of the stalls edge.  A soft click and she pushed the door open, sliding into the empty stall and closing it behind herself.  

It had been Ianto's suggestion to hide a secret entrance in the bathroom, although she suspected it had actually been J.K Rowling's idea originally.  Unlike the other stalls, in this one the plumbing had been removed and capped off leaving just a square stall and a couple of pipes.  The wall looked the same simple brown or chrome colour as the rest of the room but a thin seam was visible about halfway up the wall.  

Stepping forwards, Martha shifted on her feet, lining her hands up with the pressure points on the right hand side of the block of panelling.  With a soft press, the panel swung back away from her just an inch before sliding noiselessly off to the left and recessing into the wall.  The passageway ahead of her was pitch black and Martha took a deep breath before stepping into the darkness.

The panel slid back into place behind her and she stood still, waiting for it to seal completely.  Once the click of the system resetting came through, she raised her chin slightly and spoke to the darkness.

“Recognise Jones, Martha, Medical officer, password: Hippocrates.”  A soft hum sounded in the small chamber and a dim light came on, illuminating the metal chamber she was currently trapped in.  A moment later a green light appeared to her left and the metal door in front of her clicked open.  Pushing her way through, Martha hurried into the small chamber beyond.  It was barely the size of a small bathroom, with half the room taken up by a long desk with a couple of old fashioned monitors hooked up.  

The thick cases around all the equipment made it look even older, like an abandoned part of the base, but she knew better.  Ignoring the obvious 'on' switches on the dead looking equipment, Martha peeled aside a poster instructing her to “keep calm and carry on” and revealed the simple smooth panel behind it.  Pressing her hand flat against it, she muttered to the scanner to hurry up. Finally, the equipment sprang into life, the familiar floating blue glow of the Torchwood server filling the screens.  

Accessing what she could of the bases damaged telemetry readings, she checked the air quality, radiation readings, virus and bacteria levels and let out a breath she hadn't even realised she was holding.  No contamination in the main hub, but high levels of dust and smoke and the emergency extraction system had been knocked out by something; the air would be getting thin down there soon.  There were no readings from the morgue tunnels beyond section 12.

Patching through to the main Torchwood office, Martha quickly uploaded what she could about the readings, CCTV footage and so on.  The linkage between the two systems was sporadic at best, something about the residual rift energy interfering with computer signals, but she hoped enough would get through for the team of UNIT and foundation researchers based at the tower block to get started on an explanation for all this.

Satisfied that she had done all she could with the limited information available, Martha turned to the big air lock style door at the far end of the chamber.  It looked like it had come straight off a submarine and, knowing Torchwood's habit of hoarding old junk, she could fully believe it had once been the pride of Her Majesty's Navy.  Now, it was protecting the world above from the chaos of Torchwood below.  That and half a dozen similar doors that she would have to pass through on her way down the stairs.  

Martha grabbed an emergency face mask, small oxygen tank and a heavyweight Maglite torch from an innocuous looking cupboard under the desk. She strapped the mask over her face, hooked the tanks strap over her shoulder and tucked the torch into her jacket as best she could then began to turn the wheel locking the door in place.  She had a few floors to go but with any luck she would be in the main hub in no time.

She just didn't know what to expect when she got there.

***********************************************

Ianto Jones pulled up as close to the bay as he could get through the gawking traffic and abandoned his car, hurrying on foot towards the Tourist Information Office.  Already the emergency services were at work, gathering up the workers and early morning tourists who had been hurt by flying glass and getting them into the Millennium Centre for assistance.  Luckily, the area was quiet this early in the morning, but the glass everywhere would take ages to clear up.

Again.  Ianto made a quick mental note to have a chat to the insurance company who shared their building to make sure they wouldn't mess about with the payouts this time.

A few police officers were trying to help out but there was no sign of the source, no fire or crime scene to guard and they looked a bit lost.  Which at least meant Ianto could get through unhindered and slip down the steps onto the wooden board-walk.  He could hear his footsteps hammering on the wood as he hurried to the door, the smell of the water filling his senses but carrying with it the faintest hint of smoke or chemicals.  

As he had expected, the emergency system was still in lockdown on this entrance, but Ianto's pass persuaded the wooden door to open and swing inwards, letting him inside.

The place was a mess but he honestly couldn't see any new damage at least.  Heading for the desk, he looked at the warning lights around the room and couldn't help remembering the alarms going off last time, just before the hub was destroyed..

Watching from above as he had been lifted away, losing sight of Jack in the last few seconds then having to leap clear as the explosion chased after him, knowing that those same flames had already destroyed Jack, burying him below the ground again...

...Watching from the rooftops as the crews dug through the wreckage, the small amount of Jack that they had found being taken away, treated as a threat even now, Ianto having to watch and let  someone else take him away...

...the sight of the cement pouring in, the faintest sound of Jack screaming carrying through the still air, the horror of his fate, being buried alive yet again, trapped and helpless and there being nothing Ianto could do to stop it...

...watching Jack walk away, his grief etched into every cell of his body, burying himself deeper than the graves any of their enemies had constructed for him, and Ianto helpless to stop him, forced to watch anddo nothing...

Calling up the readouts, Ianto shook the memories off and frowned as he surveyed the damage.  He couldn't tell much; it looked as though the systems were not talking to each other properly.  A secondary alarm was going off in the lift shaft; the lift had shut itself down so that wasn't an option.  Looked like he was stuck with the stairs.

Releasing the fake panel hiding the entrance, Ianto took a moment to grab a torch from under the counter and hurried into the corridor.  There was a faint sheen of smoke or dust to the air but there had been no indication of serious fire in the central hub, nothing to set off the alarms yet anyway.

More worryingly, there had been no readings of any kind from the lower levels.

Jogging to the stairs. Ianto focused on the path ahead, his eyes locked on the floor and his torch in the dim red emergency lighting.  His leg was aching a little already but he resolutely ignored it, pushing it aside as he had done so many times over the past year, ignoring the pain and trying not to remember just how many steps he had to go still until he could rest.

With an override to the controls and a hard shove at the door, Ianto stepped into the stairwell just a couple of metres before the lift shaft and headed down.  

He didn't even notice the lift cage was missing.

****************************************************

Captain John Hart was aware of one thing only.  It hurt.  He wasn't sure at first what 'it' was but his brain was definitely telling him it wasn't happy with the situation.  Shifting slightly, he suddenly realised that wasn't a good idea as 'it' included his arms.  And legs.  And most definitely his head.  He could feel something smooth against his forehead and, forcing his eyes open, he wondered for a moment if he was in fact blind before the faintest red glow was discernible.  No blindness, just dark.

John tried to move his arms and cried out as he realised that that was definitely not a good idea.  Waking fully, his survival instincts quickly came back into focus and he began systematically assessing what was going on.  Head?  Hurt like hell and he seemed to be face down on a smooth surface.  Correction, pinned down.  A weight on the back of his head was holding him in place.  His arms felt like they were beside his head and wiggling his fingers was painful but he could feel the same smoothness below them.  

Strangely, his legs were bent under him, as though he was sitting up.  That was weird-

Suddenly John remembered; the scanning desk in the Hub.  He had been sat at the desk and Johnson-

“Johnson?”  Calling out desperately, John could only hope that this was some trick of hers, maybe payback.  It was a pretty useless thought,  but he liked it.

“John?”  He could hear her voice, muffled and quiet, and it sounded like it was below him.  “You okay?”

Groaning deeply, John could feel the pounding in his head worsen at the sound of his own voice and he took a deep breath to try and steady himself.  As dust and what felt like smoke tickled his lungs he began to cough, a move that only made his chest feel worse. 

“Been better.”  Coughing again, he tried once more to shift his head and found he could move maybe an inch to the right.  Not enough to work with really.  “I can't move, where are you?  And what the hell happened?”

“I don't know.  Some of the loose rubble from the higher levels started coming down and a nice big chunk knocked you out almost instantly.”  He could hear the trickle of stones falling, as though she had shifted or more of the roof was still coming down.  He really hoped it was the former.  “I dived under the desk, I was about to pull you down too when the whole place started falling apart.  You've got one of the dividers jammed across your back by the way.”

“Thanks, wondered what that was.”  John snarled and tried to move his right wrist, inching his complaining fingers across the desk.  He could feel rubble shifting around it and cried out as the board across his back moved, pressing down on him harder and forcing his head flat against the desk harder.  “Dammit.  Can you reach my right hand?”

“John, I can barely see.  Hang on.”  John jumped as a hand clasped around his leg, regretting the move as a fresh wave of pain swept through him.  “Sorry.  I guess that's you then.”

“So when you said under the desk,” John winced as another hand slid over his other leg, her strong grip guiding her up his body, “you really meant under the desk.”

“Uh huh.  The screens have mostly sheltered me but there's loads of rubble in here too.  I'm okay, it's just hard moving.”  He could feel her fingers scrabbling up his leg, guiding her higher up his body.  He became aware of a small blur of white light somewhere just out of his sight and realised she must have a torch on her.  Alright for some.

“If you can get my right hand free and reach my wrist strap we can get the hell out of here.”

“Can you move your fingers?”

“Yes.”

“Tap the table, help me figure out where your hand is.”  John quickly got to work, tapping aimlessly on the desk as he felt the pressure of her body flat against his legs.  Grinning to himself, he knew it was completely the wrong time but what the hell.

“Johnson?”

“Mmm hmm?”  He could feel her arms starting to stretch past his thighs, her fingers seeming to be using the braiding on his jacket to climb higher as though it was a ladder.  It was when he felt the pressure of what had to be a chin in his thigh that he knew the moment was right.

“Whilst you're down there....”

A chuckle from under the desk preceded a none too gentle dig of elbow against his thigh and he winced.  “You are hopeless.  Tell you what, if we get out of here alive I'll restrain you in the good way later.  For now, shut up and keep tapping.”

“Yes Ma'am.”  Resuming his tapping, John tried to ignore the pressure on his body and the darkness around him.

He was also trying to ignore the irony of the fact that they had both buried Captain Jack Harkness alive and were now sharing the same fate.  The Goddesses sure had a twisted sense of humour.  He just had to hope they would get out a lot quicker than Jack had.

*************************************************

Lois was in hell.  She was sure of it.

She couldn't seem to let go of the handrail, her hands refusing to release it and her brain telling her irrationally that it was the only thing holding her up in the air still.  Therefore, if she let go she would die.

“Come on Lois, you can do this.”  Taking a deep breath, she forced one finger up from the metal, feeling it shake against her will.  “Just one hand, just let go with one hand.”  Closing her eyes against the pitch black, she concentrated on one finger at a time until finally her left hand came free of the metal.  Clutching it to her chest, she breathed raggedly for a moment, scared at how much energy the simple move had cost her.  

It was one thing to be brave against aliens or in the team, to learn how to shoot and how to fight and how to stand up to the snooty bleached blonde hairdressers in the city who didn't know how to handle her hair properly.  It was quite another to be alone in the dark, trapped underground and not sure if she was about to plummet to her death.

Keeping her eyes closed, as though trying to convince her mind that the darkness was her own choice, she dug into her jacket pocket.  Her shaking fingers wrapped around her phone and brought it out, her eyes opening as a press to the buttons let the dim blue light of its screen fill the air.  The soft glow was barely enough to see her own hands, but to her it was as reassuring as a kid's night light.

Pressing the buttons clumsily, she tried ringing out then swore as the signal dropped, the reception too faint to get through.  “Come on...”  She tried again, watching the small bars of the signal flicker between none and one as the call tried to connect.  “Dammit!”

Tilting her head back, Lois screamed at the top of her lungs, only half in the hope that someone could hear but more to release the pressure of her own fear building inside her.

As the sound of her scream faded away, she took another deep breath and blew it out shakily.  Okay, so the phone signal wasn't strong enough.  Typing carefully, she composed the short text message and addressed it to as many Torchwood members as she had in the phones memory.  She had no idea who was where, who may be trapped beneath her and who may be coming to help, but hopefully one of them would get it eventually.

Holding her phone up above her head in the futile hope that the signal would be stronger, Lois said a quick half forgotten prayer under her breath and pressed send.

***********************************************

John couldn't help crying out in pain as she pulled on his arm again, trying to yank his wrist free and sending a jolt of agony along his shoulder.

“You okay?”  The muffled voice of Johnson betrayed a note of concern and John couldn't help smiling slightly in spite of his pain.  Maybe he was starting to get under her skin after all.  “Maybe I can find a way to knock you out so you won't bitch so much whilst I'm working.”  Or maybe not.

“Nice to...  Know you care.”  John coughed tiredly, his breath warm in the space around his head.  The whole place was starting to feel warmer and he had a horrible feeling it wasn't his body that was the change.  If anything, the slight shiver running through him let him know he should feel even colder.  That left the very real and very scary possibility of a fire somewhere; they were in serious trouble if they didn't get out of here soon.

“You're just deafening me.”  He heard the soft chuckle from beneath him and a slight, reassuring pressure on his thigh.  “You're not usually this vocal.”

“Shows how much we haven't covered yet.  Bet you're enjoying making me scream.”

“Usually when I'm the one making someone scream I'm not the one who's on my knees,” she retorted tiredly.  John could feel her shift along his body, her hands on his upper arm for a moment as she let him rest.  “Your strap seems to be wedged in pretty tight, I don't know if I'm going to be able to get it out.”

“Figured as much,” John coughed again, his body tiring in the warmth and smoky air.  This was not looking good.  “I suppose we can always wait for rescue.”

The snort from under the table was audible to him even over the sound of small pieces of debris raining down from above them, a constant pattering of grit and stones.  “You've got five minutes then I'm starting again.”

“Deal.”  He sat in silence for a moment, the pressure on his head driving him crazy if he thought about it too much, then shifted slightly in his chair, ignoring the growing ache in his body and the urge to scream and fight against the pressure around him.  He knew that to kick off now would only hurt him more in the long run, but he wanted to do something.  Anything.

“I spy with my little eye-” John started.

“And just when I thought it couldn't get any worse...”

“-something beginning with D.”

“Desk.”

“Nope.”

“Dust.”

“No.”

“Dark.”

“Ladies and gentlemen we have a winner!”

“Well that was thrilling and killed all of ten seconds.”  Johnson sighed heavily and he could feel her shift again, her body heavy against his leg.  “John?”  

“Mmm?”

“Do you think that Reed and his new team could have caused this?”  

John could feel his brain getting sluggish but dragged up the memory of what she was talking about; the handsome young Doctor grinning at them as he made his way through the hub. 

”You're early this morning, did you come just to see me?”  John teased lightly, openly admiring the young man's taut form as he grabbed a white decontamination suit from the small rail at the top of the autopsy bay stairs.  He wore simple jeans and t shirt for work, looking more like a student from the University than an experienced medic.

“Course I did John, who could resist?”  John grinned at the New York accent, the Italian American sound such a sweet change from all the Welsh that was definitely starting to lose its novelty.  “And you are top of my list, just after I've finished with a hundred or so frozen or defrosting bodies I'll be right with you.”  

John laughed, leaning on the edge of the screen dividing their work area off from the rubble and cleared central space of the hub and leered at Doctor Reed - Alex - as he bent over to slip his feet into the boot covers.  “Mmm gotta love an early bird.”  He swayed slightly, tilting his head to get a better angle.  “You know what they get...”

“Down boy.”  Alex stood upright and pulled the suit up, prompting a definite pout from John as he became hidden from view.  “You can keep your worm to yourself, and keep your hands off of mine, capiche?”  

Shame the boy thought he was the Godfather or something.  His dark looks, the strong figure and gorgeous hair let him get away with the attitude most of the time, but John couldn't help imagining himself showing that pup who the real top dog was.

Johnson stood to join him at the barrier, an amused look on her face as she glanced at John that he returned easily.  She enjoyed seeing him flirt, even hinting that should he find a suitably... discreet young gentleman she would not be averse to seeing him turn flirting into action too.

So maybe it wasn't strictly speaking just the money that kept him coming back.  No harm in a job with benefits.

“What's with the new boys?”  Johnson's question made John drag his attention back to the small team following Alex down into the autopsy room, their unfamiliar faces and UNIT insignia making them stand out.

“Oh these guys?  We've got a tricky one to get out, just getting some bio experts in to help out, that's all.  You can check with Martha if you like...”

John laughed and raised an eyebrow disbelievingly.  “Yeah right, interrupt a girl on her second honeymoon, even I'm not that crazy-”...

Sighing heavily, John would have banged his head against the table had he not already been getting a lovely imprint of it on his face anyway.  “Never trust a pretty face.  You're right, the bloody kid conned me.  Me!”  John drummed his fingers on the table in annoyance.  “I'm getting old, this place is ruining me.  Martha was saying something about a valuable but unstable body last week but I didn't pay any attention, figured she was just being dramatic as usual.”

“Fabulous.”  Johnson shifted under the table and he winced as she caught a sore spot.  “So because he wanted to rush things we've been set back a month or more in digging this dump out again.”  Growling low in her throat, she took a deep breath and John felt her hands slipping up his body once more, determined to get them out of here.  “He'd better be dead, because if he isn't I'm going to kill him.”

John was about to reply when she pulled hard on his arm and he settled for shouting out incoherently instead.  Break time was over then...

************************************************

Mickey Smith grinned as he gunned the engine and ignored the pedestrians and gawkers looking at the broken glass covering the edges of the Plass.  Sliding between the gap in the bollards, he crunched his way across the gravel and pulled up next to the half built pair of Watertowers.  He didn't get much attention and the few who did look took in the newly attached vinyl sheets proclaiming him to be a gas engineer (he could also have chosen plumber, highway patrol, local council or any number of other disguises he had prepared) and promptly ignored him again.

Definitely more discreet than the disco lights.

Mickey jumped out of the vehicle and indulged himself for one moment, taking in his masterpiece.  He had always had a way with cars, tinkering with old wrecks dumped on the estate since he was a kid before finally getting a job at his mates garage.  It hadn't been much, but then again he didn't have much ambition at that stage.  A job he liked, a girlfriend he liked, a flat that he could cope with and a computer that let him mess around in his free time was all he needed to be happy.

To be Mickey the idiot.

He'd never dreamed that one day he might be able to do this; to work on cars with almost no budget limits and with technology that would make his old boss' eyes pop out.

He had picked up a fair bit on his own, but working as Ricky in the parallel universe he had gone so much further than he would ever have dreamed.  When he and Rose had joined Torchwood she had naturally gone into alien research, her knowledge from travelling with the Doctor proving invaluable.  But he, he had ended up in the workshops, taking things apart, putting them back together again, losing his eyebrows at least once and almost a couple of fingers, but having the time of his life.

It was still nothing compared to this.

Standing back, Mickey folded his arms and looked at his creation.  From the outside it looked like a standard Audi Q7, large but still city friendly and not that out of place in a city like Cardiff.  The paintwork looked like a standard metallic silver but he knew the secrets contained within the vehicle that were unlike anything else on the planet.  He had handed the complete specifications to Ianto only a couple of days ago but, other than a quick test drive and play, the team here knew very little of its true potential.  

Running his hand along the paintwork, Mickey grinned at he ran through the specifications in his head, imagining Jeremy Clarkson drooling over it or James Bond being briefed for a mission.  It did sound like something out of a Bond film when he tried to list everything.  Colour changing paintwork, soundproofing, changing number plates, ultrasonic weevil deterrent, tinted windows (which could go lighter or darker or react automatically to bright flashes), bioscanners on the steering wheel to prevent theft, a variety of weapons, full computer hook up to the main office, touch screens, full body restraints on the back seat - hell, he even had an antibacterial hand gel dispenser and a spare change of clothing hidden within the vehicles panels.

And that was just for starters.

Opening the back door, Mickey leaned in and slid his fingers along the drivers seat's head restraint.  What at first glance appeared to be a screen for one of the increasingly popular in car DVD players popped out into his hands and, after a moment, lit up brightly, the familiar blue swirls of the Torchwood remote servers coming into view.  A few commands later and the Audi was set to work, the inbuilt scanners working to build up a detailed picture of the surroundings.  

As it worked, Mickey slid into the driver's seat again, the light grey leather of the upholstery creaking slightly around him.  Grabbing an earpiece from the glove box, he linked it to the hand held computer and grinned as he dialled through to the office.

“It's Mickey.  Put me on the screen.”  He watched as the view changed, the all too familiar angle he knew from his calls to Ianto showing now as he was patched through to the giant display screen in the office.  A small group of lab technicians were gathered round looking nervous, their experiments forgotten.  “Alrigh', listen up folks.  I don't know your names yet, yeah, or what you do, but right now we gotta work together, so I need you to not be shy and yell if you have something to add, okay?  Who's been monitoring the Hub link?”

“Me sir,” a young dark haired technician raised his hand and stepped forward uncertainly, his white coat making him look younger than he must have been, reminding Mickey of some teen heartthrob actor he'd seen on posters recently.  “We had an upload of information from Martha, it looks as though the Hub communication lines have been damaged but there was definitely an explosion from within the lower levels.  Also the lockout on the Tourist Office entrance has now been lifted by Mr Jones.”

Mickey tried not to grin at that.  Mr Jones.  To him that still meant Tish and Martha's dad...

“Nice one, any ETA on Johnson's muscle men?”

“They're en route but will be another fifteen minutes at the very least sir.”  A pretty blonde raised her hand as she spoke and Mickey couldn't help shaking his head a little.  Either he was getting older or the science geeks were getting younger. And prettier.

“Right, soon as they show up they're going in the office entrance.  What 'bout UNIT, their doctor's missing, they must be screaming blue murder by now?”

“Actually they've been pretty quiet,” another voice called out, this time a young Asian man. “Which may be because it was their doctor who caused the explosion in the first place.”

A slight murmur of disapproval from the others made Mickey shake his head quickly.  “Can we prove that yet, or you just guessin' Mister...?”

“Chen,” the scientist replied confidently.  “It's a theory that fits all the available evidence.  We recovered CCTV footage of Dr Reed taking a team of UNIT men into the Hub early this morning, the explosion appears to have originated in the section that was closed off as being extremely hazardous, and UNIT are being quiet.  To me, that would suggest guilt.”

Mickey raised an eyebrow approvingly and nodded.  “Nice theory, but try not to let them know that we know, you know?  When we get proof, Ianto can deal with it.  Anyone got the current Hub specs?”

A nod and a few commands later and the plans were floating on his screen, the small key at the side letting him flick through the details quickly.  “Nice one.  Right, I'm sending you through all the scan details I'm getting, I need you to play spot the difference and find where the trouble is, where Agent Johnson and Captain Hart are, and most of all any and all speaker equipment in the hub, whether its connected up or not.”

“Speaker equipment?”

“Yeah,” Mickey grinned as he looked round the plans, his fingers darting over the small screen as he worked.  “I need to make a call...”

************************************************

Ianto groaned as he saw the wall of rubble blocking the entrance to the Hub.  It was inevitable really, but he had hoped the reinforcing they had put up over the entrance would have held better than this.  

If that hadn't held up, what were the chances of John and Johnson being alive?

Backtracking, Ianto stepped into the narrow channel that had formerly held the giant cog door in place and edged his way sideways along it, feeling the rough brick tear at his suit as he slipped through.  The wall at the end of the channel had collapsed long ago, just a small cupboard of a chamber beyond being exposed, a remnant of a previous entry system but one that they had used to good effect.  A small ladder stretched both up and down from this level, rising into the Hubs upper levels and dipping down into it's depths.

The levels themselves were blocked through collapse or flooding, the entrances and hatchways sealed and impossible to get through, but the smallest connection between surface and basement remained.  Edging into the narrow chamber, Ianto knelt down and looked at their handiwork.

A small box, almost organic looking rather than technological, was attached to the rungs of the ladder and thin tendrils of wire were feeding from it and rising and falling through the Hub itself almost like a web.  In fact, in a way, that was exactly what it was.  The small box, nicknamed the Spider, was a signal booster of sorts, something that UNIT had lent them long ago.  The wires sought out any technology and instinctively headed towards it, seeking to integrate with its system and share information.  It had proved too dangerous a technology to use anywhere modern, but here, buried beneath the ground, with all outside links blocked long ago, it had been safe, tucked away and isolated.

They had never told him explicitly but he had known as soon as he saw it where the technology had come from.

Cybermen.

Suppressing a shudder, Ianto leant over the small device and checked its readings carefully, pressing a button to make a small display screen spring into life, readouts and data streaming through it.  The device itself was fine, but the tendrils connecting it to the scattered remnants of technology it could find through cracks and gaps in the shaft were damaged.  They were reconfiguring, seeking new ways through, but it would take time before the systems were able to communicate again.

Grabbing a small flashdrive on the side of the device, Ianto took a deep breath and pulled it clear, pocketing it quickly.  The drive was the equivalent of a black box, recording all the data from the system and hopefully it would give some clues as to what had happened here, even though from the immediate glance it looked as though something had exploded down in the lower morgue sections.  

If by some miracle their young Doctor Reed had survived, Ianto was definitely going to fire him.

Slipping back through the gap yet again, Ianto leaned heavily against the corridor wall, his hands sliding down to rub his aching leg, willing his body to obey him.  The scar from his old bullet wound was an ever present souvenir of John's handiwork, although as the move had saved his life he couldn't really complain about it.  Much.  

If he was being sensible and obeying Martha's advice he wouldn't even be down here, he would have stayed up top, overseeing Johnson's grunts and the UNIT resources when they arrived and letting them do the dirty work.  It was still an adjustment, having so many resources available to him, but it had still crossed his mind as soon as he realised what was going on.  He may have been the only one who could open the door but he didn't have to be the one who went through it.  Yet he had still opted to come down here himself, to try and do what he could.  To save John.

It was more than professional worry, more than the concern over a colleague that dragged him down here.  Sucking in a pained breath through his teeth as he stepped forward, Ianto made his way back over to the wall of rubble, taking off his jacket and tossing it to one side before piece by piece digging his way through the top of the pile.  It was inefficient, possibly pointless, but the feel of the brick under his fingers was good, it was physical and monotonous and real, the dust ingraining itself into the soft whorls and ridges of his fingertips as he worked...

The dust was all around him, filling his lungs and as he tried to move a sharp pain was shooting through his shoulder, pinning him down and rendering him helpless.  He could see his arm outstretched in front of him, his knuckles grazed and sore, unable to do anything to escape, completely dependent on the others to come get him.  Assuming any of them had even survived, for all he knew he would be trapped here, alone in the destruction for days.  Would anyone ever come for him, would their attacker make himself known and finish off what he had started, or would this be his grave, alone and unmarked for all eternity...

Shaking off the memory, Ianto worked faster.  He still owed John his life, and if he could do one thing it would be to make sure the bastard at least got out of this hell hole.  Dead or alive.

*****************************************************

Doctor Alex Reed snorted as he woke up, throwing his head back and jumping as the cold seeped into his awareness.  He could hear a trickling noise somewhere and he could feel pressure against his body.  It took him a moment to realise it was water; he was submerged up to his chest, the suit keeping him dry but the chill of the bay seeping through to his skin.

Coughing, he looked around him, the only light in the room the soft light of a couple of rows of cryogenic chambers on one wall, an eerie blue glow that made him feel colder than he already was.  There was no sign of his team, and the room he was in looked smaller than the chamber they had been heading for.  He couldn't quite remember what had happened, but the pain in his head and the fact that he was swimming suggested it hadn't all gone to plan.

He was so screwed.  He had tried to put his bosses off as long as possible but Martha's departure had left them with an irresistible opportunity to try and sneak out a few of the more unusual specimens from storage.  Come in early, nip down to the lower levels, bag up the bodies and be out before anyone noticed.  It was a foolproof plan.

But instead he was trapped somewhere deep underground, in a room full of frozen bodies that was rapidly filling with water, in a bio suit whose air supply wouldn't last forever.  It wouldn't protect him from hypothermia either.  He needed to get out of here.

Ducking his head below the surface of the water, Alex was surprised by the silence but his eyes adjusted quickly to the murky water.  It was cloudy, making it hard to see much more than a metre or so in front of him, but he could make out the outline of the chambers along one wall that were still running.  The rest...

It took him a while to find the hole in the wall, the chambers around it twisted and scorched  from what must have been a large blast.  The hole was more than big enough for him to slip through, but the pressure of water coming through from the other side made it difficult.  After several false starts he finally managed to make it through, surfacing with a gasp even though he had been perfectly able to breathe under the water.

It was pitch black in the space, but the trickling was louder, the leak definitely in this room somewhere.  The water level was higher too, the water higher up his body and pressing against his neck.  He couldn't see anything, the darkness too complete, but he could feel something floating on the surface beside him, bumping against his head.

Groping his way along the object blindly, he tried not to react when he realised he had found the rest of his team, or at least one of them.  When his gloved fingers found the jagged edges of the broken head piece and the features of a nose hidden under the water he let go, twisting to feel his way back down the body.  Some of the team had had torches, if he could find one...

Not this guy.  Shaking off the claustrophobia, Alex pushed the body behind him to the wall where he had come in and stepped forwards, reaching out in the dark.  If he couldn't see he couldn't find the tunnel back out of here, assuming it had even survived what happened here.  He still wasn't entirely sure how he had.  But he needed light to have any chance of getting out of here.

“Hello?  Anyone in here?”

Trying to stay calm and ignore the slight chattering of his teeth, he swept his arms across the surface, searching for any more bodies.  If he tried to think about how many obstacles were ahead of him he would freeze up but instead he focused on the task ahead.  Light.  Either he would find one or he wouldn't but the next step would come after that.

One step at a time.

***********************************************************

Martha could feel her legs starting to burn from the descent, the passageways long and deliberately twisting, the route not the most direct one.  They had had to link up with old tunnels, passages that had not been opened for years but their very isolation keeping them undamaged by the blast that had destroyed the Hub.  She knew she had a head start on Ianto but he would probably beat her there.  But that didn't matter.

She could feel the thud of each step, her feet pounding on the stairs, but she didn't even notice any ache.  Tom had once asked about the scars on her feet, a hurried lie about a bad case of sunburn as a kid covering the truth.  How could she explain they were the calluses from a year of walking without rest in borrowed shoes, of nights spent in the rain and mud, of the scorching heat of sand and salt, of the starts of a nasty case of trench foot, of blisters and cuts and a hundred small injuries that should not exist?

So many secrets.

She could still hear the angry words from their fight the night before echoing through her mind with each footstep, Tom's voice yelling at her, driving her back with each word as surely as if it was a blow.  Why did she never come home, what was she doing here, why couldn't he call her, why hadn't she come to his mother's birthday, why did he see more of her sister than her...

She had tried to answer but couldn't find the words, the secrets building up over and over until they had a life of their own.  The pile was too big, too fragile to even think about.  Just one revelation could unbalance the whole lot and bring her life crashing down around her.  She just wanted to keep going, to keep walking, to get through each day and hope that at the end it would all work itself out.

Laughing to herself, Martha ran a hand over her face tiredly.  Even she knew how ridiculous that sounded.  It might work with the Doctor, to simply walk away and let the problems take care of themselves, but this was real, it was her life.  No one was going to save her from it.

She couldn't see a way out, but one thought kept going through her head over and over, her own voice, so offhand, so carelessly tossing off an explanation that now made her heart sink. “Maybe Indigo tapped into my mind. Cos I ended up in the one place that I wanted to be.”  The place that in her heart was always home.  With her mum.  At the end of everything, the one thing she had wanted most of all was to run home to her mummy; hardly heroic.

Worse than that though, the thought she had never shared with anyone, would never admit to, was that finding Tom had never even crossed her mind.

She had sat and chatted with Ianto so many times, especially when he was stuck in hospital, and when he talked about Jack she could see how the separation was hurting him.  The way he felt about Jack, it was hard and painful and terrible but at the same time there was a power to it, a strength and joy that sustained him through the physiotherapy and the long struggle to rebuild his life.  He had something to work for, someone to make proud and a faith that someday it would be worth it.

She had felt that way just once in her life and for one person only; the Doctor.  He really was a hard act to follow.  So would she and Tom ever really stand a chance?

Martha rolled the wheel of the door and pushed hard, trying to get the heavy metal to swing faster as it groaned away from her.  Once it was open, she retrieved the torch from under her arm and shone it through, sighing with relief as she spotted the slightly different style of door ahead of her.  She was down all the stairs, her path under the Millennium Centre and the edge of the bay completed; now she was just getting into the Hub area itself.

The back passage would come out on what had used to be the first floor, up by the old hot house balcony, and even though the stairs there were damaged a ladder had been fixed to the wall to replace it. Or if that was damaged the doorway had an emergency chain ladder that could be swung down.  She had to admit, when Ianto planned ahead he really planned ahead well.

She just hoped that all the planning wouldn't be for nothing.

*******************************************************

Ianto could feel the simple monotony of the work dulling his mind, his brain switching off a little as he focused on simply moving one brick after another off the pile.  One task at a time.  It was how he had always got through these things.  But as he worked he couldn't help thinking of the last time the Hub had collapsed, of the team and family he had lost that day.  Could he bear to lose it all again?

It was strange how quickly this ramshackle bunch had become so important to him, each in their own way.  Lois was so young, she really did remind him of himself at that age, so eager and dedicated.  It was strange to see her taking his place, to not be the youngster but instead the old hand, the one in charge.  All he could do was teach her as best he could and hope that she would learn from his examples - and mistakes.

Johnson was order and power and control and there was something so hard and incomplete about her it worried him sometimes. She was a mystery, her loyalties unsure at first, but he trusted her to do what was right.  She had that darkness to her that he had seen in Jack too, a ruthless streak that was something he knew he would never have but respected all the same.  More than that though, she would obey without question in public but approach him in private if she wanted to, and that was even more important. The Torchwood he had joined had needed a butler, but this one needed a soldier and they had found it in Johnson.

Martha...  Sometimes she reminded him of Tosh and Owen, Tosh's gentleness and his wit in equal measure.  She was his friend and his doctor, the one he confided in most of all.  She was the one who talked to him, who listened, let him share what he needed to and let him be as weak as he needed to be.  Her gentle bedside manner invited him to trust her and in return for his trust he had been granted an insight into a different side of Jack too.

He liked her stories of the Doctor best; when he had been in the hospital, UNIT protecting them even as the government tried to get rid of all the evidence yet again, she had sat with him, an angel in the darkest times.  His grief at losing Jack, at what he had done to Steven, had been so raw he couldn't share it with anyone else, certainly not Gwen or Rhiannon.  He would never have let even Jack see him like that but Martha had been just what he needed, a real friend.

Which was why she had to leave; He was her boss, but he could never work with someone he was that close to again.  It made him weak, made him hesitate and worry.  Besides, she had a life of her own to get back to.  This was just a temporary thing.  Hopefully this week with Tom would help her see that too and remind her of the life she was missing out on by being here.

As for his new allies at the Mr Copper foundation and the technicians and scientists they lent him, he didn't trust them at all, even if they had had a good start.  The only group he trusted less was UNIT; yes they had protected the team at a vulnerable time but there had always been an arrogance about them, a self interest that worried him.  Which, bearing in mind the predicament they were in now, was seeming less like paranoia all the time.  The Mr Copper foundation had been started by a good man, with the best of intentions, and so far things had gone well but Ianto knew all too well what could happen to good men when they came under bad influences.

Speaking of bad influences, of course, brought him to John.

He wasn't really in the team, he was outside of the command structure and only on the payroll when it suited him.  Sometimes he would just vanish for a week or two without word.  Ianto was under no illusions that he could control John, that he could ever get him to stay.  He was simply around for as long as it suited him, no loyalty or commitment, thinking of no one but himself and his own desires.  By all rights Ianto shouldn't care about him either.

But he could feel his heart race a little at the thought of anything happening to John, their  fiery relationship somehow more precious to him than Martha's gentle care or Lois' youthful adoration.  John had been oddly comforting over this hard year, their little jokes and the flirting soothing, as though a part of Jack was still with them.  They were connected in a way they never acknowledged, the knowledge of what John had done for him, for Jack, binding them together invisibly and overriding most of John's past mistakes.

They fought side by side and got drunk together on those dark evenings when Ianto didn't want to talk but just needed someone to sit with, no words or comfort, just company on the road to oblivion.

John was the closest thing he had to an equal around here.  When they got drunk together he could let his guard down and know he would never be asked anything he didn't want to answer, never offered anything he didn't want.  Except once.

They had kissed, just once.  The alcohol had turned them both melancholy and his body had ached with loss and pain.  He had been so tired, so numb yet in agony, and longing for something, anything, to dull the pain.

He could still remember the way John had held his shoulders and pulled him close, the taste of tequila on his tongue, his pheromones making him smell so like Jack that for a second Ianto was tempted.

It would have been so easy, to just give in and blame it on the alcohol, on John, even on Jack for not being there instead.  He knew Jack wouldn't blame him, would understand and forgive him; for all Ianto knew Jack was doing the exact same thing at that second.  Hell, he never even needed to find out, it could be their dirty little secret, one for Ianto's side to balance all the hundreds Jack had kept from him.

Instead, Ianto had pushed John away, his heart pounding and his breath coming in gasps as he tried to stay strong.  He leaned his forehead against John's, feeling the heat of him, the strength in his chest as Ianto slid his hands up between them, creating a barrier and marking the line that John couldn't cross.  He only spoke one word but it had been enough.

“No.”

The sigh that had escaped John's lips had hung between them, the decision final yet somehow they could both sense the ways that moment could still play out, as though a crack in the walls of reality had opened and let them peek into all the other universes taking shape and breaking off from that point-

\- Ianto changing his mind, swearing softly as he lunged forwards, capturing John's lips with his own, their bodies hungry and passionate as they fought to touch and feel, to block the pain the only way they knew how -

\- John not taking no for an answer, pushing Ianto against the wall, plundering his body, Ianto's drunken blows no match for him, the fight ending quickly as John was finally in a position to take what he wanted -

\- John walking away into the night without a second glance, leaving without a thought or care and never coming back, leaving Ianto alone in the dark-

Instead, John had simply shrugged, his hand rising to hold Ianto's cheek softly.  “Your loss eye candy.  I won't do it again.”  Grinning, he leaned in closer, the sourness of his breath making Ianto's nose wrinkle even though he knew his was just as bad, but he didn't pull back, not trusting himself to move yet.  “Not until you do it first.”

Laughing in surprise, Ianto had pulled back, swaying slightly on his bad leg.  “You mean unless, not until.”

“I know what I mean.”  Brushing Ianto's shoulders, John had stepped back, making a safe distance between them again, the moment over.  “Jack's an idiot.”

“Tell me something I don't know...”

That had been months ago, before Jack's first message telling him, giving him permission,  to do pretty much what he had already done.  Yet the guilt still burned in him that it had happened.  He had hated Jack for stealing Lisa's last kiss from him and now John had done the same.  Who next would steal that one kiss they had shared?

How many more last kisses could he take?

As he pulled at the stones, a wry grin came over Ianto's face.  Maybe that was why he was so determined to find John alive.  Maybe that was why every time John offered himself to Ianto, Ianto had mirrored that last gesture, holding his face as a way to acknowledge the deal between them.  As long as there was the possibility of more kisses, and the ability to resist them, then that one slip was still nothing.  It was just a kiss.

At least, that was what he was telling himself.

***************************************************************

Lois could barely keep her breathing under control, her eyes fixed on the small light of her phone.  Her thumb was moving over the buttons every few seconds, trying again and again to get a message through but nothing happening.  Her phone suddenly flashed and for a second her heart soared at the thought that it was a reply, someone was coming-

Low battery.

Panicked, Lois pulled the phone close and double checked the readings, swearing quietly.  If the phone died, then even if someone did get the signal boosters back online she still wouldn't be able to get a message out.  Taking a deep breath she switched the phone to standby and slipped it securely into her pocket, letting her eyes adjust to the darkness again.  

As she tried to calm down she stared up into the darkness, looking beyond the cage to the ink covered depths of the shaft above it.  As her eyes adjusted she could make out a small glow from somewhere up the wall, the vaguest square shape flickering like an afterimage at the edge of her vision.  Standing up straighter, her curiosity slowly began to override her fear and she leaned away from the railing, peering up at the shape.  

It looked like it was just above the elevator cage, a square in the wall of the shaft, and there was the faintest trace of light coming from it.  Reaching up, Lois tried to judge the distance to it and frowned as she realised its size.  Even if she could get up there it looked small, not much more than an air vent.  Which was presumably what it was.

Sighing to herself, Lois shifted back into her corner and sat down again, pressing her body against the walls and floor of the cage.  At least she knew there was going to be enough air in here.  She also knew enough to know that the safest thing to do in an elevator emergency was simply to stay put.  Movies aside, she knew she would never manage to climb out of the cage and reach that hole anyway, not without the help of Bruce Willis.

They would come for her eventually.

She hoped.

*******************************************************

Rhys hurried into the house, his eyes flicking round the rooms for any trace of his wife and child.

Of course, with a three month old baby in the house there were plenty of those.

“Gwen?”  Rhys called out softly, quickly searching down stairs.  “You here?”  Padding quietly up the stairs he picked up a small discarded sock on the way to the nursery.  Pushing open the door he smiled at the sight of his daughter sleeping peacefully in her cot whilst Gwen slept in the rocking chair.  The whirring of Angharad's mobile was the only sound in the room and Rhys clicked it off, reaching down to adjust her blanket and looking at his daughter, safe and sound in her home.

“Rhys?”

He looked round as Gwen stirred sleepily, confusion on her face.  “What time is it?  Is Harri okay?”

“She's fine, love,” Rhys quickly came to her side, kneeling down beside her on the soft nursery carpet.

“How long have I been asleep, what time is it?”  Gwen asked, looking flustered by his sudden appearance.

“It's okay, it's barely even nine.”

“Nine?”  Gwen frowned as her brain finally started to wake up properly, spotting the gentle concern on Rhys' face.  “Rhys, why are you home, what's happened?”

Rhys sighed heavily and was grateful he had rung the Torchwood office whilst stuck in traffic to find out what the latest was.  At least he could tell her that much.  “There's been an explosion-”

“Oh God, is-”

“Ianto, Martha and Mickey are fine.  Captain John and Agent Johnson are missing and Lois and Reed aren't supposed to have been in the Hub but neither have checked in yet.  It might be nothing-”

“Oh God.”

“Mickey's handling things above ground, Ianto and Martha are heading down and Johnson's boys will be heading down as soon as they get back.  Something about a pair of mating weevils and an Italian restaurant, but they should be there soon.”  He held her hand lightly, reassuring her.  “They're handling it.”

Squeezing his fingers, she nodded quickly and glanced over at the cot.  “I just...  Not again.”

“I know.”  Leaning forwards, Rhys thought quickly, leaning his head against Gwen's and hugged her softly.  It would have been so easy to let her sleep, to lie to her and keep her safe but he couldn't do that to her.  No secrets, it wasn't his style.  Instead, he took a deep breath and pulled back, looking her in the eye.  “If you want to go down there I'll stay and look after Harri.”

Gwen smiled softly, considering the offer and what it must have cost him to make it before leaning forward to kiss him softly.  “Thank you sweetheart.”  Raising her hand to brush his hair back gently she shook her head.  “But you're right, they're handling it.  There isn't really much I can do down there.”  Checking her watch she thought for a moment and smiled as she held Rhys' face lightly.  “But if you don't mind sticking around for an hour I'd love a shower and a chance to ring in.  Just to make sure.”

“Course.  Ruth is handling the office so I'm all yours.”

Grinning suggestively, Gwen practically purred as she leaned in close.  “You certainly are.”  Kissing him tenderly, she stroked along his neck before pulling back.  “I don't deserve you.”

“Too bloody right you don't,” Rhys agreed with a grin as he pulled back, rising to his feet and glancing over at his daughter again.  “Right, I'll put the kettle on whilst you sort yourself out.”

As he hurried off Gwen watched him go and sat still, trying to stop the torn feeling inside her.  There wasn't anything she could do; she wasn't up to date on how far the recovery work had got before the explosion, she didn't know half the new personnel who had rotated in recently, she hadn't even seen Mickey in months...  She couldn't help, and worse she would almost be a hindrance by making people explain everything to her when they could be doing their jobs.  Besides, her family needed her.

Family.

“Oh, shit.”  Jumping up, Gwen grabbed her phone and dialled Rhiannon's number.  There was no way Ianto would have remembered to let her know he was alright.  Smiling to herself, Gwen slipped out of the nursery and padded quickly through to the bedroom.  It wasn't much, but at least there was still something she could do to make herself useful.

********************************************************

Anyone paying close attention to the vehicle parked up on the Plass might have noticed the thin cables connecting the vehicle to the framework of the two new water towers, the metal skeletons almost looking like giant aerials for the car.

Which, at that moment, was exactly what they were.

Mickey grinned as the system searched deep beneath the ground, using the metal of the sculptures and their links to the Hub below to boost the signal.  It soon locked on to the  buried but still intact speakers buried beneath the ground, letting Mickey scroll down the list.  It looked like half a dozen mobile phones, three of the old hub loudspeakers from the alarm system, a few random sized speakers that he couldn't identify and at least two computer speakers, possibly from the old desktops they had had in the Hub, and one much smaller signal but with a strange configuration.  He was willing to bet that one was John's wrist strap.  A futuristic speaker but a speaker nonetheless.

Time to make the call.

Locking on to his targets, Mickey closed the car door and activated the soundproofing.  No sense alarming the people still milling around the Plass.  Besides, he wasn't sure how loud the transmission would be so probably best to let rip.

Taking a deep breath, Mickey linked his headpiece to the other technology and grinned as he flicked it on.  Showtime.

“Gooooooooooooood morning Torchwood Hub!”

*********************************************************

Ianto jumped at the voice blaring out of his mobile, instinctively grabbing for it and checking for incoming calls only to find its screen perfectly peaceful even as the speaker crackled slightly with the volume.  “This is your wake up call, courtesy of DJ Smith.  I'll be bringing you all the latest hits in just a short while but first we have some public service announcements...”  Smiling in surprise, Ianto listened as Mickey continued and suddenly wanted to get back to the office and find out just what else that vehicle of his had in store for them.

********************************************************

Lois held her mobile tight, listening to the voice and trying hard not to scream with delight at the sound of it.  “For anyone in Torchwood hearing this, the cavalry's on the way.  Ianto and Martha are already on their way down and the muscle boys will be here in a bit so just hang tight.”

*********************************************************

Martha grinned as she pulled hard on the door wheel, trying to get it to release.  This one was slightly rusted and stiffer than the rest.  “And in case you were wondering how the hell I'm broadcasting to you right now, wait until you see the full specs on your new car.  You're gonna love it.”  As the door swung open, she coughed at the increasing amount of dust and smoke in the air and frowned.  Hopefully they would all get a chance to love it, the sooner the better.

*******************************************************

Johnson kept as still as she could, the voice faint but audible through the table, John's strap whispering to them in the darkness.  “Right now, this call is courtesy of a bit of recovered tech that Sarah Jane got for me, let's me call anything with a speaker.  I should be able to let you reply too, but I gotta figure out how to target one of you at a time for that so bear with me.”

“Chula Om-Com.”  John chuckled to himself, then coughed at the increasingly bad air.  “Gotta love a bit of alien technology at a time like this.”

“Shut up and listen,” Johnson replied crabbily, fighting down the headache that was growing steadily behind her eyes.

************************************************

“So just hang tight kids and we'll get you out in no time.  And Ianto, if you can hear this, looks like we're missing Johnson, Hart, Reed and a team of approximately four UNIT techs.  Also, Lois never checked in yet, so if you're down there too, hang tight kid.”  Mickey looked round the Plass and frowned at the police car coming towards him.  Damn.  “Right, I'll be back in a bit.  Don't go away!”

Turning off the microphone, Mickey slipped off his earpiece and grabbed a battered looking clipboard from behind the drivers seat.  A stack of forms were clipped to the top and he hastily sorted through them to bring the gas safety check to the front.  That done, he stepped out of the car and put on his best innocent grin.

Just because it had never worked on the cops before didn't mean there couldn't be a first time.

************************************************

Tom sighed as he gratefully accepted a cup of tea from one of the hotel staff, leaning against the reception desk as he looked around the room.  The glass was being swept up, the few people with cuts and scratches had been patched up and one of the receptionists was on her way to hospital after a deep gash on her arm.  But, all in all, the crisis was over for now.

Sipping his tea, Tom looked round as a phone rung, trying to find the source of the sound.  Eventually he realised it was coming from him and, abandoning his tea on the desk, dug in his pockets, pulling out Martha's battered old phone and looking at it hesitantly.  The number didn't show up and Tom took a deep breath as he headed to a quiet corner, answering the call and listening silently, not sure what to do next.

“Martha?  It's Jack, please don't hang up!”  Tom frowned at the male voice, a nasty feeling growing in his stomach as he stayed silent. “Look, I'm really sorry I put you in this situation but we have got to talk.”  He sounded American, not old nor young.  Maybe Martha had met him on her trip to New York, maybe he was with UNIT?  That must be it, a work colleague.  “I think... I think it's time we tell him the truth.  Or at least some of it I guess, I don't think knowing we've been going behind his back for this long will help.”

Tom wanted to be sick, his stomach churning as his very worst fears seemed to come true, the secret fear that haunted his nights and whispered to him in the dark suddenly here in bright daylight too.  He'd put up with the travel and secrets, accepting her standard excuse that her job required it, but if this was what it sounded like...

“Martha, I know you don't want to do this but I...  It's not fair on him.  Or you.  I can't do this any longer.”  Tom couldn't speak, his hand gripping so tight to the phone he was afraid he would break it.   “Martha?  Come on, I need to-”  The voice broke off, an  unintelligible gibberish of possibly another language coming faintly over the line, the caller obviously distracted.  “Martha, I have to go, I'll be in touch.”

The call dropped out, leaving Tom staring out of the broken windows in silence, his fingers turning as white as his face as he held the phone in place still.  He could feel his other hand tightening into a fist, his shock complete as he finally switched off the phone and thrust it deep into his pocket.  

He had been such a fool.

He needed to find Martha, needed to hold her close and look into her eyes and have her tell him that it was a mistake, that she hadn't been cheating on him, that she loved him...

Tom wasn't even aware he was walking until he was already out of the hotel.  He had no idea where he was going but he just kept walking, unable to keep still, wanting to scream and rage at the world but holding it in, so tight inside him.  Each step tightened the coil of rage inside him, building up slowly, growing and darkening like a poison on his soul as he pictured her, laughing and joking and kissing and...

She was having an affair.

And he was going to make her pay.

********************************************************

Agent Johnson leaned heavily against John's leg, her arm starting to cramp as she pulled futilely on his.  Biting back a curse, she let go and retreated under the table again.  The thin light of her torch, wedged into a gap in the debris, was illuminating John's stomach and making it the only thing she could see.  She pulled back as far as she could, but the conditions under the table were extremely cramped and she was getting increasingly claustrophobic.  She had just enough room to shift position and she winced as she slid back to the floor, trying to straighten her bent legs just a little.  

“You okay?”  John's concern made her laugh a little and she patted his thigh reassuringly, trying to muster up her strength.

“Just taking a moment... to enjoy the view.”  Rubbing her hand over her face, she could feel her pulse pounding behind her eyes.  Her head was killing her.  She was sure she hadn't been hit during the initial collapse but as her throat was beginning to burn from coughing she was starting to suspect that wasn't the problem.  She could feel her eyes watering and was starting to notice definite swirls of smoke in the air under the desk.  Something was burning, and she had a feeling it wasn't going to be good for her health.

This was not where she had pictured ending up.  She'd always assumed her cause of death would be a bullet or twenty, or maybe a full on explosion.  Something fast, unexpected and shocking, but simple.  She'd almost expected Harkness to shoot her, just for the hell of it, after all she'd done to him.  She would have.

Instead she was working for the good guys - or at least, people who believed they were good.  She had seen far too many grey situations in her time to believe in good or evil any more, just life, death and good intentions.  She had always left the moral debates to those higher up, accepting her orders and trusting that the right call had been made.

But now she was starting to doubt her past and the things she had done.  How much had been for the good of the country and how much for the convenience of its government? How much of her personal path to hell was paved with good intentions and loyalty to the crown?

Wincing, she moved forward and rested her head on John's leg wearily, wrapping an arm around his calf to centre herself as her head began to spin a little.  “John?  How's your head?”

She heard the thin chuckle through the wood and the cough that followed.  “Been better.  Is it just me or is something nasty burning in here?”

Nodding against his leg, she forced herself to slide her hands back up his body, grabbing his shoulder again.  “Better... get out of here then.”  Grabbing hard, she began to pull on his arm again, ignoring the complaints she could hear through the wood.  Black spots were starting to drift into her vision and she had a feeling they weren't dust.

As she set to work again she consoled herself with one thought.  At the rate her head was going, if this didn't work soon at least she wouldn't be awake to see what became of them.

*********************************************************************

Martha Jones almost whooped with joy as she reached the final door, the hasty spray paint markings and symbols on the walls guiding her to it and pointing out the newly installed emergency ladder.  She just hoped she wouldn't need to use it.  The wheel was stiff and her arms ached but she gritted her teeth and pulled harder, working as much of her body behind the effort as possible.  Slowly, the wheel began to grind open, the mechanism releasing with a soft sigh as the air of the Hub began to seep past the seals.

She was in.

Pulling the door open, Martha grabbed her torch and coughed at the smoke and dust in the air, the faint flicker of what had to be flames catching her eye as she gazed into the darkness.  She could see at least two small fires within the space but the heat that was building up suggested there may be more hidden from sight within the warren of tunnels and debris pockets around the place.  If anyone was in there they needed to get out, fast.

Flicking the light across what should be the floor, Martha swallowed hard.  The piles of debris around the edges of the room had crept closer, almost swallowing up the exposed central platform again.  She could see no trace of the spray paint that had marked out where the old Hubs features had been. 

But, more worryingly, in the smoke and dust there was no sign of the screens and work area where Agent Johnson and Captain John should have been.

Checking the metal ladder extending down from the doorway, Martha shook her head and quickly released the emergency one too.  The rungs didn't look strong enough and there was no way she was getting trapped down there too.

Dropping to sit on the edge of the doorway, suspended in mid air up on the wall of the Hub, Martha shone her torch down into the wreckage.  Taking a deep breath, about to shout out, she stopped as she heard something anyway.  She had been expecting maybe shouting, calls for help or even banging to show signs of life.

She wasn't expecting the howl of pain that echoed through the air instead.

************************************************************

Mickey Smith grinned as the Policeman came over, the light hair and somehow cheeky looking smile making him reassess the possible threat.  No big muscles, no attitude, no detectives, just a street cop.  This shouldn't be too bad.  No worse than all the other times he had been pulled over anyway.

“Alright then, what's going on here?”

“Morning officer, just checking it out after all the excitement this morning.  Someone rang in a report that they could smell gas and I'm just making sure it's safe.”  He smiled politely as the policeman took in the vehicle behind him and the wires.  The policeman folded his arms disbelievingly and Mickey tried not to lose his grin.  

“So you must be the new Torchwood bloke, the car one, right?”  

Mickey blew out a long breath and frowned, throwing the clipboard into the car and turning back to face the policeman.  “So much for disguises, don't know why I bother.  Okay, how'd you know?”

The policeman shrugged and smiled smugly.  “Gwen Cooper.  Plus I'm sortof the unofficial liaison for you guys, no extra money mind you, no promotion, I'm just the muggins who gets sent out every time something a bit spooky happens around here.  Not exactly what you call fun, but beats policing chip alley on a Saturday night I'll tell you that much.”  Holding out his hand, the policeman nodded as Mickey shook it back.  “I'm Andy.”

“Mickey Smith.”

Greetings over, Andy gave up all pretence of nonchalance and started checking out the car properly, leaning in through the door to take a look.  “So this is the new one eh?  Very nice.  Beats that hideous old black thing.”  Standing up straight again, Andy nodded, professional once more and looked over at Mickey.  “Anyway, we've got more officers coming in, as well as the ones around anyway, so just let me know what you need and it's yours.”

Grinning, Mickey slapped Andy on the back.  “Nice one mate, know what, you're about the nicest copper I've ever met.”  Keeping his arm around him, Mickey pointed out towards the bay.  “Right, I need this whole area evacuated and blocked off, tell people it's a gas leak or something like that.  Just give me room to move, we're gonna need space to get some injured colleagues out unnoticed.  Oh and we've got some others coming in, the big dudes in the Land Rovers, let them in and let us get to work and we'll be out your 'air in no time.”

“I've heard that before...”

*************************************************

“You dislocated my bloody shoulder!”

John's roar was too loud in Johnson's ears as she pulled back again, her body collapsing back against the rubble as the pounding in her head threatened to overwhelm her senses.  As she slipped back, she knocked the torch free of the rubble and its light skidded across the debris, settling to point at John's foot.  The tickle in her throat became too great to ignore and she began to cough again, each spasm making her head throb and bright lights dance in the corners of her vision.

“John?  Johnson?  Is that you?”

She tried to stop coughing long enough to answer but it was taking all her energy just to stay conscious.

“Martha?  About bloody time you got here-”  Wracking coughs echoed through the table above her but she found she could not care any more.  Help was on the way, she just needed to stay alive and conscious long enough for them to reach her.

As the spots floated in front of her eyes she could feel herself slipping into the darkness and hoped one out of two would be enough.

**************************************************

Grateful for her mask as she felt the faint tickle of the bad air, Martha swung her way out onto the thin ladder and gripped it tight, her boots finding their way uneasily in the dark. Finding a firm hold and wrapping her arm around it, she retrieved the torch from her bag and clicked it on again, shining it over the rubble and looking for any trace of her colleagues.

“John?”

“Here.”  The voice was weak, coughs echoing through the smoke filled air, but she still couldn't work out where he was.  Playing the light of her torch over the brick and dust she paused as she spotted a brief flash of blue, then another.  They were only a few metres away but the bricks covering the distance looked too loose to walk on.

“Hang on, I'll try and get closer.”  She took in the loose layer of rubble covering everything and realised it wasn't as bad as she had first thought.  The original debris piles had shifted, spreading out over the floor and forming a carpet of bricks and rubble but most of the fresh fall was around the edges of the room again.  Unfortunately that included the main doorway and the small area where John and Johnson had been working.

Further back in the room, over by the old autopsy bay, the overhang had protected a wider area, the reinforcing they had put up lasting better there than she had expected.  But the fires seemed to be coming from that direction most of all, the brickwork slightly scorched and there were signs that the wall had come down further.  She could have sworn most of the old Torchwood sign had been intact before, whereas now she could only make out the ghostly letters of “chwo-”, the rest lost to dark shadows or plain brick.  

Getting her bearings, she realised the blue she could see must be one of the boards that had marked the entrance to “the tupperware party” as John had morbidly nicknamed the work area.  Climbing lower down the ladder, she kept a tight grip on it as she stepped off onto the layer of rubble, feeling bricks and stones shifting under her feet before settling into position.

“John?  I can't see you, whereabouts are you?  And where's Johnson, is she here too?”

“Yeah she's here, say hello love.”  Martha listened closely, a faint scratching sound coming from somewhere ahead of her.  “Johnson?  Come on, don't mess me around, this is no time for games.”  Using the sound of his voice to orient herself, Martha dropped lower down, shifting to crouch on the rubble, her hands out to balance herself as she listened closely.  “Martha?  Something's wrong, she was talking a minute ago.  Hell, she was pulling my bloody arm out-”

“Okay, John I need you to tell me exactly where you are.  Can you move at all?”

A bitter laugh echoed through the dark then John began to describe exactly the fix he was in.  Wincing, Martha looked at the flashes of blue in the darkness, trying to figure out which ones were trapping him in place.  Finally content she knew where he was, she took a deep breath and lowered herself down the ladder the rest of the way, her feet finding shaky footing on the rubble as she supported herself.  Getting her balance, she dropped down to all fours and began to crawl across the rubble slowly.

“John, if you feel any increase in pressure at all, yell, I'm not 100% certain how close I can get without hurting you.”

“Oh believe me sweetheart, you find me I'll know about it.”

The mask made her breathing loud in her ears as she crawled over the rubble and tried desperately not to remember similar times in her past.  The blast on the Hath human colony world.  The explosion that destroyed her London flat.

The ruins of Japan fading into the distance as she drifted away, the small boat slowly taking her to safety even as hundreds of thousands lost their lives.  The smell had been similar then, smoke and dust and burning wafting on the breeze as the small flotilla of boats tried their best to get away.  When the Toclafane had finished with the island they had come after the boats.  She had been one of the lucky few to make it to land again.

Shivering in spite of the heat in the room, Martha pushed the memory away, barely a second lost to the past as she carefully picked her way closer.  Settling onto the rubble a safe distance from the blue, she assessed the room again carefully, her instincts kicking in.  In any emergency situation, the most important thing was not to get into trouble and need rescuing yourself.  The structure itself seemed stable enough again, although some loose debris was still trickling down.  The fires in the hub itself seemed small enough, and far enough away from where she was heading that she was confident she could avoid them.

The smoke was another matter though.

Setting an alarm on her watch for ten minutes, she set to work, her fingers flying over the stones and throwing them past her as she worked quickly.  “Hey John,” she called out as she worked, “how about a story to keep me amused whilst I dig your sorry arse out of here?”

A chuckle from somewhere in the mess in front of her echoed up and she settled into an easy rhythm, letting the sound of his voice guide her and keep the memories at bay.  “A story?  Well there was this one time I was on a transport ship heading to Mars when the gravity failed so we invented a new sport - zero gee naked hide and seek...”

***************************************************

The problem with alien technology, Mickey admitted to himself, was not only that the controls were never in English, it was that the logic in its construction also never followed a human thought process either.  It made for a lot of trial and error and, right now, Mickey was experiencing more error than success.

Listening carefully to the earpiece tucked over his right ear, he tried to narrow the range down to a single speaker within the Hub again, his fingers having trouble filtering out the other signals as he got used to it.  As it locked on he listened carefully, calling out over the system and waiting for a response.  He could hear a soft crackling noise but nothing else and crossed another one off the list.

The problem was, although the system could tell the different sizes of speakers down there when broadcasting to all of them, he couldn't seem to actually match that information to the individual ones, leading to pretty much a pot luck system.  He was sure there had to be another level of filtering or sorting somewhere but so far he hadn't been able to find it.  With enough time, he would have it all sorted and running perfectly.

Except, judging by some of the readings showing on the scan, time wasn't something they had.

Mickey looked up from the controls in the car and grinned as a Land Rover skidded across the gravel to slide into place beside him, all pretence at being undercover blown in one impressive move.  Dropping the alien radio controls, he emerged from the vehicle and quickly strode over to the beefy army types spreading out from the Land Rover, armed to the teeth and looking ready to cause chaos.

“'Bout time you showed up.”  Shaking hands with the lead commando, Mickey pointed over his shoulder back towards the bay.  “I'm Mickey, I need you guys to get down into the base proper by the office entrance and find Ianto, he'll put you to work, yeah?  We also lost comms, I need one of your boys to act as a runner, get down to Ianto, get an update and get him to peg it back up here and fill me in.”

Nodding briefly, the commando turned back to his men and without a word, just a hand signal, he moved them into action, setting off on foot along the Plass at a quick jog.  Shaking his head as he watched them go, Mickey sighed.  Military.  He looked round as the blond policeman, Andy, finished a conversation over his radio and came back over, looking quizzically at Mickey.

“Here, we've got some bloke down by the shops trying to get through to here.  Says he's Torchwood, but then again so does everyone nowadays.  Oh sorry I was speeding officer, but I'm Torchwood.  I wasn't drunk, I was abducted by aliens, just ask Torchwood.  I don't remember what happened last week, maybe Torchwood got me.  Honestly, it's like they think we can't just check.”

Mickey swung back into the driver's seat and picked up his control pad again, his attention sliding back to his work.  “If this story has a point mate I'd love to hear it, only I'm a bit busy right now right?”

“Well this bloke seemed like a regular crazy, but apparently he first said he was looking for UNIT, then Torchwood, then said his name was Tim or something like that and that he was Martha's husband and that name rang a bell with the officers down there.  Isn't she that doctor type of yours?”

“Tom?”  Mickey looked round, frowning hard as he put the names together.  “You've got Tom asking for Torchwood?”

“That's what I said isn't it?”

Shrugging, Mickey returned his attention to the controls and dropped his voice as he talked more to himself than the policeman.  “She finally told 'im then, 'bout bloody time.”  Raising his voice again, he looked round and nodded quickly.  “Let him through and get him sent here, I'll deal with him.”

“Righto.”

Focusing solely on his work again, Mickey already began to forget the conversation as he selected his next target and opened the line yet again.  Fifth time lucky...

“This is Mickey, if you can hear me, yell now or forever hold yer peace!”

************************************************** 

Pulling her phone closer, Lois almost squealed with joy at the sound and placed the phone by her mouth, not sure how this worked.  “Yes!  Mickey it's me, it's Lois, can you hear me?”

“Loud and clear babe, was wondering where you were.  How you doin'?”

“I'm not hurt, but I'm trapped, the lift fell and it's stuck between floors.  I don't know where I am but I'm okay for now.”  Looking up into the darkness, she stared at the small square of the air vent above her and swallowed hard.  The flickering orange light she could see coming from it was getting brighter since she had last looked and she could just about make out small tendrils of smoke drifting up the shaft from the opening.

“Mickey, I think there's a fire on the floor above me.  It might be in the vents, I'm not sure.”

“Shit.  Listen, those army types of Johnson's are heading down the stairs into the Hub now, soon as we get communication going I'll get a couple of them to come get you, okay?  You hang on in there.”

Looking up the dark shaft and trying not to think of how many metres of cable there were above her, the only thing holding her from goodness knew how many metres of empty shaft below her, Lois laughed just once and held the phone tight.  “Hanging on in here is exactly what I'm hoping to do.”

“I've gotta go try and get hold of the others now, maybe I can get Ianto and get someone up there sooner, but I'll be back when I can, okay?”

“Okay.  Just don't be too long.”

“Be quick as I can.  Mickey out.”

Taking a deep breath, Lois held the phone tight and peered up into the darkness once more, her eyes focused on the small square of light above her, the flickering of the fire both reassuring and terrifying in the black.  

Hopefully they would get here long before that did.

*********************************************

Ianto looked round at the sound of pounding feet echoing through the passageway towards him and pushed back away from the small mountain of rubble he'd been leaning on.  The smallest hole through to the Hub itself was visible at the top and a smaller pile of rubbish further up the corridor evidence of his efforts so far.  Slithering to his feet, he winced as he put weight on his protesting leg and leaned on the wall to balance himself.

“Sir!”  The men pulled up, quickly taking in the situation.  “Sorry for the wait, bit of a Weevil problem.”

Nodding quickly, Ianto hobbled stiffly down the corridor and pointed at the rubble still blocking the way into the Hub.  “Understood.  We need that lot shifted.  I think it's starting to break through at the top-”

“On it.”  The men surged forwards, Bill and the youngest member of their team, a cheerful young man nicknamed Noddy, holding back.  “Mr Smith has requested an update, Noddy here will run messages.  Anything else you need, just yell.”

Nodding, Ianto watched as the team set to work efficiently moving his jacket out the way before setting up a human chain to pull the rubble away.  Turning back to Noddy, Ianto took a moment to think about what he needed then gave the soldier a nod.  “You ready for this?  Okay...”

**********************************************

Alex Reed shone the light of his newly found torch over the wall where the entrance had once been and swallowed hard.  Rubble blocked most of the way but through a small gap he could see a large metal door firmly in place just beyond it.  He could remember passing by similar doors on his first time down here, and asking why they were not exploring those sections.

The one thing the builders of this place had believed in was security and protecting their assets.  Just as most of the upper tunnels had collapsed at pre weakened spots during the initial blast to protect the rooms beyond, so most of the lower tunnels had blast doors that swung into place as soon as a problem was detected.  Such as water.

“Most of these chambers are completely flooded because of breaks in the wall against the bay,” Martha said, tapping her knuckles against the solid metal. “The door won't release until we can pump the water out, but at the moment we have enough on our hands getting through the rooms that are clear.  We need to reconnect the pump lines so we can filter it out and back into the bay but that's gonna be a big job.”  Shrugging, she peered through a small porthole at the murky shadows beyond.  “Basically, right now, if it gets flooded it stays flooded.  No way in.”

And no way out.

Looking around the room he could feel his heart pounding at the sight of the water level rising still further.  He was trapped, the others couldn't get in to rescue him even if they did manage to find him in time, and he was either going to suffocate or drown at this rate.  Neither appealed to him.

Swimming carefully through the hole in the wall back to the small chamber he had woken up in, he moved towards the soft glow of the stasis chambers.  Three of them were still above the water level and he managed to lean up far enough to check the controls.  Fumbling the small buttons through his suit, he managed to override the sequence on one and the lid slid open with a sigh, a puff of goodness only knew what escaping into the air.

Reaching up, he managed to get hold of a limb of... something, and pulled hard, using as much of his weight as possible to drag the body up and over the edge.  His bouyancy in the water made it difficult, forcing him to wedge a leg against the wall and put his whole weight behind the move but, eventually, with a splash the body came free and fell into the water beside him.

“Sorry buddy but it was either you or me, and I choose you.”  Breathing hard, he pushed the body away from him, deliberately not looking at whether it was human or alien.  Resetting the controls, he had no choice but to trust in the automated sequence and hope that whatever it was set to do would make it possible to revive him.  Usually the living would be sedated before being frozen but there was nothing he could do but climb in, close the hatch, and pray it didn't hurt too much.

On the plus side, if it didn't work he was dead anyway so he had nothing to lose.

Wriggling out of the suit whilst under the weight of the water proved harder than he had thought.  As the water spilled in through the open seams he shivered at the cold and tried to move quickly, knowing he didn't have long before he went too numb to do this at all.

Slipping out of the suit, he could feel himself floating higher in the water and, on his third attempt, managed to drag himself up and over the edge of the chamber.  Flopping into the case, he suppressed a shiver at the feeling that he was about to bury himself alive and concentrated on getting into place.  Finally ready, he took a deep breath and reached out, pressing the button to close the lid and seal himself in, possibly forever.

As the lid began to slide over his body he took a deep breath and consoled himself with one thought.  At least if he did die here it would save his bosses the effort of killing him; they would be mighty pissed off with him about this.

UNIT weren't going to be pleased either...

********************************************

Martha could feel her lungs starting to complain as her watch started beeping and she looked up from her work.  Her eyes were streaming and she could feel her body starting to ache from working in the thick air.  She considered using the oxygen tank on herself but shook her head to herself; the others would need it more, when they finally managed to dig them out.  She could move for fresher air, they couldn't.

“So then, of course the gravity chose that exact moment to come back on and you would not believe the injuries you can get falling in that position-”

“John?  Hold that thought.  I've got to go get some air, but I'll be right back.”

“You'd better not be running out on me doctor.”  

Laughing weakly, she crawled her way slowly to the ladder, the tiredness in her body surprising her and suddenly making her grateful she'd limited her time.  “Never.  I want to find out exactly what you injured and how badly mister.”  Grabbing onto the lower rungs, she dragged herself to her feet and felt her head spin a little with the move. 

“Take your time, I'm not going anywhere.  And it healed fine by the way!”

It took her twice as long to climb up as it had to climb down but finally she flopped onto the floor of the corridor and dragged her body along it wearily.  Rising shakily to her feet, she staggered back to the next door and was grateful she had pushed it to behind her.  Slipping beyond it, she pulled off her mask and gulped in the cleaner air in the passageway and felt her head clearing quickly, fresher oxygen sending a different kind of rush through her.

Waiting until her body was steady again, she took several deep breaths and stood up straight, adjusting her mask over her mouth again and resetting the alarm on her watch.  This was going to get annoying fast but better that than passing out down there.  Opening the door again, she pulled it tight behind her and returned to the ladder.  She just hoped she wouldn't have to do this too many times.

************************************************

Ianto watched them work, absentmindedly brushing the dust and dirt off his hands as they moved as a team, not needing to talk at all.  They were making excellent progress and finally a small gap started to appear near the top.  The sight seemed to spur them on and they sped up even as the sound of running feet reached him.  Turning back, he smiled briefly as Noddy skidded to a halt before him.

“Sir, Smith reports he's found Lois, she's stuck in the elevator shaft, unsure of what floor.  We also have local law enforcement helping up top now and still no sign of any response from UNIT.”  Nodding, Ianto was about to reply when a shout came from Bill.

“Wait a sec, I think this...”  They jumped back as a large block slithered down the debris pile, clearing a gap at the top of the pile.  Pausing, they watched as Bill leaned closer and put as much of his head into the gap as he could, a thin trail of smoke escaping from the room beyond into the hallway.  “Hello?  Anyone in there?”

“Yes!”  Martha's shout made Ianto grin. He should've known she would get in first as soon as he'd seen all the rubble.  “I'm with John, he's trapped but conscious, Johnson's buried with him but she passed out.”  Bill coughed, a thin trail of smoke starting to drift through the gap.  “Try and cover your mouth or get masks if you're coming in, something toxic's burning in here.”

“Can't be the couch,” Ianto added dryly, “that thing melted the first time.  It was like scraping a giant plastic pancake off the floor.”

Bill grinned and leaned up the pile, sticking his head through the hole again.  “We're on our way!”

Ianto grabbed his jacket and rummaged in his pocket for a handkerchief as the men got back to work.  Wrapping it around his face cowboy or bandit style, he stepped forward, appraising the gap.  As soon as it was big enough for him to get through they stepped aside, helping him up the rubble to slither belly down across it.

To their credit, they didn't say a word about his leg and simply helped him through, but Ianto could feel its ache and wondered if this was such a good idea.  The edges of the bricks and metal cut into his chest, raising scratches and bruises on his skin, but he carried on wriggling his way through.  With one final slither he popped free of the entrance, almost sliding down the debris pile as it began to slope away from the door and bricks and rubble skittered away from him.

“Ianto!”  A torch beam quickly found him in the darkness, shining on his body rather than his face as he got his bearings.  “Be careful, it's really loose.”

“No kidding.”  Getting his breath back, Ianto pushed up to his knees and grabbed the torch that was slid through the gap to him, its powerful beam cutting through the mess as he used it to survey the damage.  Surprisingly, it didn't seem too bad, but he knew at least part of that was him comparing it to the last time.  The memory of crawling out of the rubble, the fires and twisted metal all that remained of his home - and Jack...

This was fixable.  It would take a little time and set them back a while but he could fix it.  He would get it all back the way it should be.  Eventually.

Ignoring Martha for a moment, he swung his light around the room.  The debris over the old cog door looked like it had come from something exploding out from the autopsy bay wall, behind door 23.  The reinforcing had also collapsed down in the blast, actually making the blockage worse rather than helping, and a quick glance at the wall above revealed why; a whole section of it had sheared away, taking the extra scaffolding with it.  He'd have to come up with something better for next time.

The autopsy bay was once again buried.  Damn.  They had only just started making real progress there, using the shaft from the old drawer lift to access the lower levels.  He had hoped they would be able to access the vault from the side but it had proved too well made so was still inaccessible.  Swinging his torch further, he was momentarily confused by a dark hole in the wall opposite the door before a half buried flash of spray paint caught his eye.  It was the office.  

Jack's office.

The old metal frame separating it from the rest of the Hub had collapsed long ago, debris and the collapsed ceiling keeping it blocked off from their rebuilding, but something had shifted in the explosion this time and a clear gap was visible.  They would be able to get into Jack's office, he could find Jack's things, maybe even the vault or Jack's room...

Jack's room.  

By the end it had almost become their room rather than just his, a hideaway that kept them safe from the rest of the world or even just Gwen.  He had felt claustrophobic at first but by the end it was soothing, the walls and enclosed space feeling more like a safe fortress than a prison.  It was never what you would call homely but then again, what about the Hub had ever been welcoming?  If the damp didn't get to you the lack of sunlight would eventually, the eternal darkness turning them all into ghosts over time, but at the same time it had been the place he had considered his, his home.  

It wasn't so much the space itself but the people there, the tolerated colleagues who had slowly become so much more that had made it home, the memories engrained into every brick of all the people who had worked, lived and died in Torchwood.  Especially Jack himself; not just his memories but, as they had discovered to their dismay, his body too was quite literally a part of the building now.

Jack.

He had wondered sometimes why Jack hadn't run to his room when they discovered the bomb, why he didn't go there and seal himself in.  It might not have made any difference, the blast would probably still have collapsed the Plass, but it might have helped.  But then again, if Ianto could have chosen any area of the Hub that he would want to spare from the blast it would have been that cramped, dark, chilly little room that Jack called his.  Maybe Jack had wanted to save that one corner that was theirs too.  If Jack had gone there it would certainly have been completely destroyed.

But now there was a chance, just a chance, that maybe it hadn't been.

Ianto found himself starting to move in that direction before the sound of coughing reached him through the smoky air.  John.  Johnson.  His team, they were here and alive, right now.  The last remnants of Jack would have to wait.

Scrabbling over the debris, Ianto made his way carefully to Martha's side.  Following her direction, he leaned close to the rubble and ran a finger along the exposed edge of a blue board.  “Good morning John.  Sorry I'm late, traffic was murder.  How are you doing?”

The reply was muffled but somehow still dripped with sarcasm, even around the coughing.  “Never better, I always love spending my mornings crushed under a pile of junk.  You?”

Grinning, Ianto got to work on digging through the pile with her, the constant sounds of the others making the entrance hole big enough to get through easily competing with the gentle scrapes of their own efforts.  “Hey some people pay a fortune to go digging around in dark spaces, so I count myself privileged to be getting the  pleasure of it so cheaply.”

Martha coughed as her watch beeped, making her groan.  “Dammit, I gotta take another air break.”

“Go through the main entrance, Noddy is waiting to run an update up to Mickey.  Let him know what you need in the way of medical help, I'll stay with John.”

Nodding, she coughed into her mask again and dug into her bag for the oxygen tank, handing it to him.  “No more than ten minutes in this air, Ianto, and as soon as you are able, get this to Johnson.”  Leaning close to the board she raised her voice.  “John, I'll be right back, why don't you tell Ianto about that hide and seek game?”

“Naked hide and seek?” Ianto asked as he watched her crawl away, hiding his concern at her slightly shaky movements.  At her surprised look over her shoulder he shrugged.  “I've played.”

“Ever played it in zero gee?”  John asked.  

Ianto watched as Martha slithered down the debris and made her way to the door, the commandos pulling her through again easily, the hole almost large enough to crawl through properly now.   “Not yet, but if I ever get a chance to get into a gravity free environment, I'll be sure to try it out.”

“I'd be happy to be on your team.”

“I'll bet.”  

“Of course, you would have to try out first, need to be sure you're fit enough and would look good in the uniform.”

“I thought the whole point was to be naked?” Ianto said.

“Exactly,” John purred, before slipping into another coughing fit, his chest sounding tired as it rattled with the strain.  Ianto smiled to himself as he worked, the blue board becoming more exposed as he did so.  As a gap began to appear under its edge, he leaned forward, peering into the hole and shone the torch into it.   “Hey!  Watch where you're shining that thing.”  

Moving the torch away quickly and leaning in close, Ianto twisted a hand into the gap and found himself pressing against the surface of the table, its smoothness a sharp contrast to the grit and rubble around them.  His fingertips brushed over hair and he felt the slightest reaction to the move before a muffled curse echoed from the gap.  

Sliding over John's head, he realised he was facing the other way but then was surprised as something brushed against his hand in return.  Twisting further, he grinned as fingers latched onto his fingertips, the touch just light and he had to really stretch to hold them but he squeezed John's hand as best he could.  “Morning.”

“Morning,” John replied, both men falling silent for a moment, reluctant to break contact.  Finally, Ianto pulled back and redoubled his efforts, focusing on making the hole bigger.

“We'll have you out in no time.”

“Funnily enough, that was the motto of my zero gee naked hide and seek team...”

**********************************************************************

Mickey waved at Tom as he wandered, looking slightly lost, across the Plass.  “Tom!  Over 'ere mate!”  The guy looked positively exhausted and Mickey grinned as he ducked back into the car.  Martha must have given him one hell of a weekend.  Tom leaned against the top of the passenger door after he opened it, staring down at Mickey and seeming to get his breath back as he took in the mess of lights and wires Mickey was playing with.

“You...  You're Torchwood too.”

“Yep.”  Smiling, Mickey looked up at him encouragingly.  “Well, sortof.  Technically, I'm more freelance.  I'm just 'elping out whilst they get back on their feet, yeah?  Bit like Martha really, we're not exactly Torchwood, just friends.”  He looked down at the handset again, missing the way Tom closed his eyes and leaned heavily on his arm as it rested on the car.

“Of course.  She is still with UNIT, and Jack...”

“Oh Jack's buggered off travelling for a bit, just like the old days, running away with the Doctor.”  Mickey smiled nostalgically and looked up again.  “Man, that is one hell of a thing to walk away from.  I don't envy you, trying to tame one of the Doctor's women.  From the ones I've met, feisty isn't the word.”

He missed Tom's look of complete disgust, the sound of pounding boots reached him across the Plass distracting him and he looked up, quickly sliding out of the car.  “Noddy!  'Bout time you showed up, what's the news?”

The sound of an ambulance approaching pulled his attention away from Noddy's breathless update and he waved them over as he listened to the situation.  “Right, gotcha.  We're gonna need more help than this then if they're both out for the count.”  Frowning, he looked at Tom again. “Listen, Noddy mate, get ready to lead civilians into the base.  I know, I know, top secret and all that” he said quickly, cutting off the soldiers objections, “but listen, it's not as bad as you think.”  Grinning, he nodded to Tom as the doctor looked aimlessly around the Plass.  “I've got a cunning plan.”

**************************************************

It seemed to Ianto as though after all the slow progress everything started to happen at once.  With a loud crash, something in the pile by the door shifted and, with a sliding trickle of stones, Ben appeared, head first.  Grinning triumphantly, he slid onto his side as he scrambled down the rubble and looked back at the hole that was now big enough to walk through - crouching, admittedly, but big enough now.

And certainly big enough to fit a stretcher.

“Good work!”  Ianto yelled, coughing at the dust stirred up by the move.  As he tried to speak, he found he couldn't stop coughing, the tickle in his throat beyond his control now as he put his hand over his mouth, pressing the handkerchief tight.  He wasn't even sure who reached him first, Bill, Ben or Martha, but suddenly someone was pulling him to the door as the rest of the team hurried through, practically pushing past him in their haste to get to work digging John and Johnson out.

It suddenly occurred to Ianto that as much as he was worried about Johnson, these men, her men, must have been frantic too.  She was their leader, their captain just as much as Jack had been his.  He could hear Martha shouting instructions, directing them where to go and what to avoid, and he knew his work here was done for now.  As he was guided towards the exit he couldn't help looking back over his shoulder at the gaping shadow marking the space where Jack's office was open at last.  The temptation to double back, to see exactly what had survived, was so strong-

As he felt the coughing get worse, the tickle becoming a pain in his side, he shook off the urge and headed to the door.  It took him a moment to get his balance on the debris but the way out was infinitely preferable to the way in.  Stumbling over the rubbish, he put his hand flat against the cold wall, letting the chill of it cool him after the heat of the Hub.  He could feel his breathing ease as the slightly fresher air trickled around him and pulled off the handkerchief, wincing at the soot and dirt on it and relieved it wasn't in his lungs.

He waited there, breathing heavily and watching the team swing into action around him, torn between feeling proud and left out.  They all had their roles to play now and he wasn't the one who had to clean up the mess any more.

He moved aside at the sound of footsteps pounding on the stairs and barely acknowledged Noddy as he ran past, a green jumpsuited paramedic right behind him, two lightweight stretchers in their hands and masks over their faces.  Standing out of the way, Ianto leaned against the wall and tried to get his thoughts back under control.  He had been so focused on moving, on doing, it was an effort to just stop and think.

But as he heard a strangled scream from John, his thoughts scattered again and he just wanted to dig.

Taking deep breaths, he willed his body to hold on just a little longer and headed back into the fray.

******************************************************

Captain John Hart yelled again as the board finally lifted free of his body, trying desperately to keep his head still as the pressure eased.  He could feel slender fingers holding his head still, then, as they were able to, slide along his neck, checking his body for injuries.  Other hands were quickly moving into place behind him, holding his shoulders lightly before pressing over his back.

He could hear Martha calmly yelling instructions to everyone but found his attention wavering now he was finally close to being free.  It didn't really matter, the damage was either done or not, they didn't need his input right now.  It was almost liberating, relaxing into their touch and letting them lift and move his body, a stiff collar wrapping around his neck and supporting his head.  

He could feel himself being laid out on a hard board and facing the ceiling, the haze and dark around him like something out of a nightmare, especially when he spotted the masks everyone was wearing, turning them all into weird bandits in the waving torchlights.  He could see Martha moving around and was vaguely aware of a needle going into his arm then a mask over his mouth as he was hastily lifted up into the air.  

It felt odd, his body jostled slightly as they got his balance, but sortof soothing.  He was almost reminded of being in low gravity or underwater, the sensation of being supported and floating.  He suspected whatever Martha had given him may explain at least part of that but he knew in his heart he simply was beyond caring any more.  He was safe now, he was rescued, he was alive and he would recover.  The rest didn't matter.

He caught a flash of white in the corner of his eye and twisted his head just a fraction to see the face of Ianto Jones, a sooty handkerchief over his mouth, nod to him as he was carried past.  Even in his tired state he could see a touch of relief in Ianto's eyes and, as the brickwork of the Hub began to come into view, he resisted the urge to smile.  Sympathy and pity were things some people hated but not him.  A pity fuck was still a fuck after all, and to go from outright hatred to concern in one lifetime was a very good start.  Maybe there was hope for him and the kid yet.

A small jolt made his shoulder ache and he sucked in a sharp breath, his lungs complaining and the coughs wracking his body again made him wince.  Maybe he should give himself a chance to heal first though...

*******************************************************

Martha dropped into the space left behind where they had pulled John out, the chair crashing onto the rubble somewhere behind her as she wriggled under the desk to find Johnson.  The woman was collapsed in the small space, her limbs tangled as though her strings had been cut.  “Medic, get back in here, give me a hand!”

The green suited paramedic instantly obeyed, appearing beside her and moving with an efficiency she admired.  She felt rusty, the months at Torchwood almost spoiling her as she had allowed herself to be caught up in routine and paperwork and research.  As his gloved hands reached out alongside hers she gave a small nod, her training kicking in again as she moved into action, instructing him gently but firmly.  She could almost feel the eyes of Johnson's men on her, watching every move, willing her to get it right first time and not mess up.  

It didn't take them long to free her, her limp body emerging dusty but intact as they gently strapped her to the second stretcher.  Her breath was very weak but her pulse okay and Martha quickly hooked the oxygen mask over her face, checking the flow was okay before pulling back.  This was out of Martha's comfort zone.  Johnson needed to get to a hospital as soon as possible, they both did.  

She watched as Johnson's men took the stretcher off them, carrying her out of the Hub with a gentleness she'd never seen in them before.  Not for the first time, she wondered just what had happened within that team to inspire such unquestioning loyalty, for them to effectively defect just on Johnson's say so.  She did also know she would never ask though.  Some stories were not meant to be told, some friendships too strong to ever be understood by outsiders.  And, as she had discovered whilst trying to tell Ianto a story about the Doctor, spare hands, the Hath and instantly grown soldiers, some were just too weird.

Clambering out of the half buried work area, Martha took a look round the collapsed Hub and sighed as she spotted the open door in the wall again.  Yelling at one of the commandos to close it, she tiredly made her way to the entrance, stumbling over the rubble.  Gloved hands caught her tight, steadying her, and she shot a tired smile at the paramedic, his eyes filled with concern as she looked at him.  Nodding her thanks, she stood up straight and pushed away, climbing through the hole and sliding down into the corridor beyond. 

The stretchers were making slow but steady progress up the stairs and she hurried after them.  Almost there, soon she could hand them over to the ambulance then maybe head back to the hotel and get a shower before checking on them later after they'd been assessed.  She could get a break first, change of clothes, check on the room-

And Tom.  She almost tripped as she suddenly remembered he was in town and the way she had run off.  Damn, that was going to take some explaining.

Climbing the stairs, she wondered if maybe she could put that one off a little longer and go to the hospital straight away after all.  After all, good news can wait whereas bad news will refuse to leave.  So, whichever it was, it would take care of itself in its own time.

She didn't realise just how soon that would be.

***************************************************

Lois stifled a yawn in the dark elevator cage, almost surprised by how quickly abject terror had turned into complete boredom.  She was ready to be rescued already, visions of daylight, hot tea and maybe even a muffin filling her mind instead of the fears of plunging to her death.  She wondered if this was normal, if the body just couldn't sustain that kind of strong emotion for any length of time and simply reverted to relaxed boredom instead.  

Gazing up into the dark shaft, she wrapped her arms around herself and yawned again, ignoring the thought that actually it might be a lack of oxygen getting to her rather than tiredness.  Tapping her fingers against her thigh she sang to herself softly to break the monotony. 

“Love in an elevator, livin' it up when I'm going down...”

************************************************

Martha watched as the rigid stretchers were finally secured onto trolleys and rolled along the corridor, John giving her a brief and tired thumbs up as he was taken away, and leaned back against the stone wall, suddenly exhausted.  It wasn't until the paramedic stopped beside her and kicked off his green overalls that she even paid any further attention to him, turning blearily to him at last, expecting some last minute query or instruction to be needed.  As he straightened up though, her head span as she took in his face.

“Tom?!”  She blinked uncertainly, her eyes sore from the smoke and dust and her head aching from the stress and fumes.  “Is that you?  What...  What are you doing here?”

“So, how long has this been going on Martha?  How long have you been going behind my back?”

Martha froze in place, like a deer caught in the headlights.  “Tom, I can explain, this...  I've been working with Torchwood, they needed my help and they're old friends so I couldn't say no, I wanted to-”

“I don't mean your bloody job Martha!  I mean,” he fumbled into his pockets, pulling out her phone and brandishing it at her like a weapon, “this.  Him.  You and him.”

“Tom, where did you get-”  Martha broke off, confused as she snatched the phone off him.  “Wait, him who?  Tom, who called, you have to tell me right now, it's important-”

“Oh right, more important than us-”  Tom broke off in frustration, his eyes flashing as she frantically checked the phone, her attention gone from him.  “You can't even leave him alone for long enough to finish fighting with me, for fucks sake Martha, what is wrong with you?  Who is this guy that he means so much to you?”

“Who called?”

“You mean there's more than one strange man calling your phone?”  He slapped her hand holding the phone aside and grabbed her face, looking deep into her eyes as he tried to find a trace of the woman he loved, the one he had married, in them.  “How many are there?  How long has this been going on?  I thought you loved me!”

“Please, I do, I really do, it's not like that I promise, there's nothing like that, I just...  did he leave a name?” Martha looked up at him fearfully, her breath catching in her throat, struggling to find the right words.  “Please Tom, this could be...  universe shattering important!”

Letting go, Tom pushed her away, his heart breaking as he realised that even now, she was thinking of someone else.  Even if it was important, even if it wasn't sex, just another friend, someone she turned to instead of him, hell even if it was work it was clear now; he would always come last.  And in that moment he knew, deep down in his soul, that that would never change.  

And he deserved better than that.  He needed more than she could give.

“It was Jack, okay?” he spat out bitterly.

The relief on her face was not what he had been expecting, nor the smile as she stepped closer, reaching for him.  “Oh thank goodness, Tom, it's not like that, Jack is-”  she stopped as he batted her arms away, refusing her touch, her smile fading at last.  “Please, Jack is....  he's a friend, an old friend of the family, it's not like that-”

“You lied to me.”  He grabbed her wrists, stopping her from trying to hold him, keeping her away as he tried to hold back his anger, needing his grip on her to keep him from making fists instead.  “And the hardest thing is, I know you've been lying to me.  You've always been lying to me.”  He leaned in close, his face mere centimetres away from hers.  “Do you really think I'm that stupid?  That I didn't know about Torchwood?”

Moving around the corridor, Tom pushed her back against the wall, their hands pressed against the brickwork over her head, her phone clattering to the floor as he held her in place, determined that just this once he was going to have her full attention.  “Did you think I wouldn't recognise my own wife's voice on that bloody Torchwood message, the one that every single news station was playing over and over?”

He pressed his body against hers, pinning her in place, leaving her unable to get away, and ignored the fear in her eyes at the move.  “Do you think I don't notice those times when you and your parents stop talking as I come in a room, or the way Tish flinches at stupid things, or how even her friend Mickey seems to know more about your family than I do?  Or about that shrink they all go to to who nobody else in the medical profession has ever heard of?”

“I know something happened to you all,” he continued, his voice hoarse as he tried to hold back, to keep himself under control.  “I know it has something to do with...  with alien stuff, I just figured that maybe, just maybe, you would trust me enough to tell me about it.  That you would let me in.”

“I do, I wanted to, I just...”  Martha could feel the tears starting to run down her face, the pain in her arms and the look on his face scaring her more than anything the Master had ever done, more than anything she had experienced before.  Because this time, this was all her doing. This time she actually deserved everything she got.  “Please Tom, it's just so big, it's so much to explain, there's no easy place to start and there just never seemed to be a good time, but I wanted to, so many times, you have to believe me-”

Relaxing her arms she looked up into his eyes, trying to convince him, trying to undo the damage she had done to this man.  “There's a lot to explain but I want to, I really do, but I need you to know there isn't anyone else, it's not like that, I never...”  She shook her head quickly, trying to get through to him.  “Nothing happened between me and Jack, he's just a friend, I swear.”

Tom let out a shaky breath, trying to believe her on that at least, and leaned down to rest his head against hers, feeling the heat of her skin next to his, and breathed in deep, fighting back tears.  “Then why the secrets?  If this Jack guy isn't a big deal, if you're not sleeping with him, then why all the secrecy?  Why couldn't you tell me?  And why was he so scared about me finding out, why does he feel bad about lying to me, if nothing's going on, what the hell is he so worried about-”

“I think,” a new voice interrupted smoothly, “that actually you'll find it's me Jack's worried about finding out, not you at all.”

Martha and Tom quickly turned at the sound, the figure standing at the end of the dark corridor staring back at them blankly, his expression devoid of all emotion almost as though he was a machine.  

“Ianto...”  Martha whispered quietly.  “Oh God, no.  Ianto I can explain, I-”  Martha's voice held such despair that Tom couldn't help another spike of jealousy that even now she was more concerned about this newcomer than him, and slammed her hands against the wall hard.  “Tom, please-”

“Who's this?  Another one of your secrets come to stake a claim?”  He turned his attention back to Martha, ignoring the newcomer.

“Tom-”  Martha cried out as he pushed her against the wall again, her fingers grazing on the rough brick.  “Please, you're hurting me.”

“What do you think you've been doing to me?”  Tom whispered hoarsely, but her words broke through at last as he realised what he was doing and loosened his grip, stepping back and pulling away.  “I love you,” he whispered, despair replacing the anger in his voice at last.

“I love you too Tom,” she whispered back, trying to come after him, “please don't-”

He cut her off with a gesture, his hands falling to his sides as he looked at her.  “I can't...  I can't even look at you right now.”  He looked past her at Ianto and nodded to the other man.  “She's all yours.  I'm going.”

“Tom, please don't-”

He looked at her again, but she almost wished he hadn't, the look in his eyes one that made her want to be back in the year she had tried so hard to forget, back with him in that crowded house in London, starving and afraid; at least when he had looked at her then it had been with respect.  At least then he had known about the not quite man who had broken her heart, had known she was broken but had still respected her.  Still loved her.

But that Tom wasn't the man in front of her now.  And he never would be.  The problem was, which had she really fallen for in the first place?

“I'm going home.”  Turning away from her, Tom walked down the corridor towards the narrow shaft of daylight he could see at the end.  He loved her so much but it was killing him that she didn't feel the same way.  So he had no choice.  He was walking away.  The only question left was, would she follow?

“Tom...”  Martha watched him go and slumped to the floor, her strength gone as her world collapsed around her, the weight of her guilt bearing down on her and almost too much to bear.  She almost didn't notice as Ianto finally moved, walking over and bending down to pick up her phone.  She looked up through her tears as he held it out to her silently, his face still blank but she could see the muscles in his jaw going as he grit his teeth.

“Ianto, I...”  She took it off him, her fingers wrapping around it tightly, her one lifeline left.  “I'm so-”

“How long?”  He looked down at her, his clothes torn and filthy, his hands scratched and grazed and his jacket missing but with a dignity in his form that she envied.

“Ianto, I didn't want to-”

“Since he left the planet?  Since the Wraitheen's first message?”

“No, I stopped when the Wraitheen came, I told him to stop-”

“So before the Wraitheen.  Before he left the planet?”  He looked at her miserable face and tried to keep his fists from clenching.  “Before we released the truth about the 456?”  Her silence made him blow out a shaky breath as he tried to avoid asking what he feared was the truth.  “When I was in hospital?”

“Before.”  His eyes closed in pain at her answer as he tried to stay upright, swaying slightly.  “Jack... He's the one who told me where you all were.  He asked me to, to take care of you all.  He asked me to get UNIT involved and-”

“He knew,” he breathed quietly.  Ianto tilted his head back and could feel tears starting to form in his eyes.  “He knew, and he didn't...”  Forcing his eyes open he looked down at Martha and couldn't hide the hatred from his face.  “So everything I told you, everything that's happened, you told him-”

“It's not like that, he was worried about you, he wanted to know you were alright-”

“Not worried enough to come back though!  Not worried enough to let me know he was okay!” Ianto roared, his rage overwhelming him at last.  Suddenly he was grateful he wasn't armed and in a weird flash of deja vu he was back in the Hub, Jack standing over him, the gun pointed at his head, Jack resisting the urge to shoot, and he finally got it, he finally knew how Jack had felt-

Blowing out a shaky breath, Ianto stepped back, deliberately distancing himself from her, fierce coldness practically coming off him in waves.  “You're fired.”

“What?!”

“Clear out your office, get your stuff and be gone by the end of the day.”

“But...  But the others, I should be with them at the hospital, I need to-”

“Fine!”  Ianto snapped, them visibly calmed himself again, deep breaths rattling through him as he held himself still, rigid.  “Go...  Go with them.”  The mask, his armour, that polite professionalism slipped back into place and the anger seemed to leave him as quickly as it had come and he looked at her blankly again, the stony face almost more terrifying than the anger had been.  “Take care of them for me.  Then go.  Find your husband and take care of your life but just go.”

Climbing shakily to her feet, Martha wiped her face and reached out to him.  “Ianto, I-”

“Just go,” he yelled hoarsely.

She could hear the plea in his voice and nodded slowly, letting her hand drop to her side.  Pulling her coat tight around her, Martha walked away and left him in the tunnel, focusing on the job in hand.  Because whatever else she was, whatever else she had done, she still had some professional pride left.

It was about all she did have.

***********************************************

Ianto could feel his body shutting down as the feelings raged through him, anger, sadness, betrayal, and below it all the sheer sense of loss.  Jack had been gone for a year but most of the time it didn't feel real.  Reality would sneak up on him at 2am or in unguarded moments when the alcohol lowered his defences, or the pain in his leg brought it all back.  The loss would overwhelm him for a second, but it would fade.  But not this time.

Jack was really gone.

He could feel the tears prickling at his eyes, his throat suddenly too thick to even swallow, his heartbeat too loud and pounding against his neck.  But he pushed it aside, locking it away in the back of his mind as he forced himself to put one foot in front of the other.  He still had work to do.  His team was not safe yet, there was still work to do.

Slamming his hand against the wall, Ianto welcomed the sting running through it, letting it remind him that he was still alive, still moving.  He could feel a gnawing in his stomach, the feeling as though a creature was eating him alive, ready to burst out of him like something out of the Alien movies.  He had already lost Lisa to Torchwood, had he really lost Jack too?  Jack was the one who was supposed to always be here, the one who knew what to do.  To Ianto, Jack was Torchwood, all that was worth keeping of it, the heart of it.  He was just keeping Jack's seat warm until he got back.

But it suddenly dawned on him that it really was his now.  Not Gwen's, not Jack's, not really even the Queen's any more.  Torchwood was his.

Swallowing hard, he tried to keep on walking, the feeling threatening to overwhelm him.  He was alone.  He tried hard to remember how this had all started, how he had ended up in Torchwood at all, but the memory was slipping away, his youthful self such a different person he couldn't seem to connect to him at all.  Even Lisa seemed to belong to someone else, her kisses a long forgotten sensation, as though the man she had loved had died alongside her after all.

Who was he now?

His shoes scuffed on the wall as he dragged his way along it, letting it guide him towards the end as he tried to straighten up again, to hide everything away.  He had had so much practice with Lisa, hiding the fear and the pain, that it had become second nature.  He could feel the mask slipping back into place with every step, the walls in his mind as strong as the walls under his fingertips.

As strong as Jack had been, muscles and skin brushing against his, arms folded around him in the dark.  With Jack he had hidden too, but that time it had been the love and joy in his heart that he had kept locked away, never letting on how much it had all meant to him.  They had explored everything else, every kink, every boundary and level of intimacy except how they truly felt.

Maybe that was why Jack had left.  Maybe that was why he hadn't come back.  Maybe that was-

Ianto winced, startled out of his thoughts, his hand rising to his ear as a burst of static shot through his long forgotten earpiece along with a whoop of joy that he recognised as Mickey.  ”Finally!  Alright, this is Mickey, to all Torchwood personnel hearing this we have comms back.  Reed, can you hear me?”

Ianto stood still, listening to the silence over the radio and sighed.  “To any member of Dr Reed's team, this is Torchwood, please respond.”  Nothing.  “Yo, Alex, come on, give us a sign here.”  He could hear the muttered oath and the soft beep of the transmission ending, then the familiar click as Mickey contacted him personally.  “Ianto, you there?”

Taking a deep breath, Ianto stood up straight and tucked his shirt back in, his armour clicking back into place as he focused on the task at hand.  The pain could wait.  “Loud and clear,” he replied smoothly, surprised at how calm he sounded.

“That spider thing you fixed seems to 've done it's job.  I'm getting feedback from the lower levels.”

“And?”  Ianto could hear the hesitation and pushed his ear piece in deeper as he began to walk again, drawing steadily closer to Johnson's men working at the top of the lift shaft.

“If I'm reading this right, we've got small fires in a couple of places, some of which we've got no way to get to, but I'm tracking Reed's access card and the area he was in's got flooding.  And...  I'm not gettin' any life signs.”

Sighing, Ianto nodded to Johnson's men as they came into sight, the familiar faces of Bill and Ben twisting to look around at him before returning their attention to their equipment.  With Reed gone and only Lois still trapped, it looked like their work would be done sooner than he had thought.  “Understood.”

“Oh and Ianto?  We got company.  Looks like UNIT finally got out of bed.”

Closing his eyes briefly, Ianto longed again for the days when this wasn't his responsibility, when he was able to just be on hand with a cup of coffee and a sympathetic smile.  It seemed so very long ago.  “Right, I'll be right there, just hold them off for now.”  Shaking his head, Ianto kept back from the edge of the shaft as Bill and Ben worked on the small winch apparatus, a thick rope slithering down into the darkness.

“'right boss?”  Ben looked up at him and grinned toothily.  “We'll have the kid out in no time.  Big Ears is firefighting a couple floors down to try and keep her from getting too much of a sauna on the way up.  Can't get much of a lick on it though.”

“The fire suppression systems were too damaged in the original blast to kick in.” Ianto said automatically.  “Once everyone is clear I'll try and get the lock down to seal off the affected areas and deprive the fires of oxygen and if that doesn't work we'll have to think of something else.”

“Righto.”  Bill looked up from the winch, his gloved hand guiding the rope down and feeling for any sign of life on the other end.  “Hold it!”  Ben quickly shut off the winch, letting Bill feel the rope properly.  A slight wiggle came along the line then a tug and Ben switched the winch on again, slowly, lowering another couple of metres down the shaft.  “Looks like I've got a nibble.  Time to go fishing.”

“When she gets up, make sure she's okay then send her home.”  Ianto shrugged apologetically as the men looked up at him again.  “I'll need you guys around for a bit longer just in case, but once the fires are under control then short of a major apocalypse I'm closing up shop for a day or two.  The Weevils can take care of themselves for a change.”

Grinning, Bill raised an eyebrow in surprise.  “No arguments here boss.  Could do with a break after all this.”  Returning his attention to the rope, he nodded to Ben as a series of sharp tugs came through it.  “Right, time to see if she figured out how to put on a harness properly...”

Leaving them to it, Ianto walked away, brushing down his clothing and trying to get brick dust out of his hair as he walked.  Just a little longer, then he could go home.

Just a little longer.

******************************************

Lois swallowed hard as she tightened the straps on the harness, hoping she had the thing tight enough and wincing as it pinched in very unfortunate places.  But, if it would get her out of this hell she was all for it.  Taking a deep breath, she lined herself up with the open hatch in the top of the cage and raised her hands above her head, ready to guide herself through the hole, then tugged hard on the rope.

Squealing, she felt her whole body weight digging into the straps and her feet lift off the floor as she slid slowly upwards, passing clumsily through the gap and scraping her side on the metal as she went up.  Using her arms to push away from the wall, she slid around from the small air vent and the flames licking their way out of its shell.  The heat of the flames was scary in the tight space, the small hairs on the back of her hand withering away with an acrid smell as she pushed past.

She dreaded to think how widespread the damage was.  They had only just started to make real progress too.  Looking up, she tried not to think of the fall below her and concentrated instead on the faint sight of the rope stretching up into the darkness.  It seemed like forever, but soon she could make out torchlight flicking through the darkness, the harsh glare settling on her face, making her grin in reply.

“Morning Pukeahontas!” a familiar voice shouted down the shaft at her, the nickname one she had earned during her first encounter with a weevil.  Moving her hands to her hips, she stuck out her tongue as the familiar faces of Bill and Ben appeared in the open doorway of the lift shaft.  A lantern somewhere behind them cast them into strange silhouettes, but she could see the rope sliding between their gloved hands as the winch did the hard work.

“Morning boys.  What kept you?”

Holding her hands up above her head again, she reached out as Ben let go of the rope and snagged her hands tight, helping to pull her up and over the edge of the shaft.  Guiding her into his arms, he grabbed her around the waist tight and grinned.  “Traffic.”  Pulling her back into the corridor, he made sure she was clear of the edge as Bill turned off the winch and set to work on her harness.

“Thanks,” she gasped quietly as the pressure released, feeling the straps sliding free of her clothes.  “There's a fire-”

“We know,” Ben said, gathering up their equipment quickly.  “They want us out of here asap.  They're gonna try and lock the place up again and stop it that way.”

“And if that doesn't work?” she asked doubtfully.

Shrugging, Bill stood and helped her to her feet.  “I'm a soldier, not a firefighter, but we'll do what we can I guess.  You get the rest of the day off though.”

Brushing herself off, Lois looked around the corridor, coughing as the men finished packing up.  “So you've got to hang around?”

“Yeah,” Bill grumbled, throwing the last of their things into a plain canvas bag.

“Well...” Lois smiled and placed her hands on her hips again, but this time offering the crooks of her arms to the two men.  “I don't suppose I can buy you two boys a coffee whilst we wait?”

**********************************************

Ianto strode quickly across the Plass, his hands in his pockets to keep them warm in the chilly breeze from the bay, and took in the small group of uniformed men and their vehicles parked around Mickey and the water towers.  Walking halfway, close enough to be easily visible and to get their attention, he stood still, belligerently making them come to him.

He watched in silence as the men half marched over, one, clearly in charge by his bearing and uniform, leading the way.  Nodding to Ianto briskly he held out his hand.  “Mr Jones I presume?”  Ianto nodded once but his hands stayed in his pockets.  He wasn't in the mood for pleasantries right now.  “Colonel Sanders, UNIT.” To his surprise, Ianto found he couldn't even muster a smile at the name as the Colonel continued to speak.

“Sorry about the delay.  Some bloody alien ship has been buzzing the skies over London all morning, playing havoc with air traffic control, scaring pilots - the media seems determined to believe it's the Russians again thank goodness, but it's been a right mess.  And then, just as we are about ready to shoot it down it buggered off again!  No idea why.”

Ianto resisted the urge to make a facetious comment, his lack of interest making the Colonel pause for a moment, shifting a little as though to check Ianto was actually looking at him.  “Anyway, I understand Dr Reed is missing and if there is anything we can do to help-”

“From what we can tell,” Ianto interrupted smoothly, “Doctor Reed is buried, although whether that is alive or not we're not sure, in a section that's flooded, about a hundred metres under us and that we can't get to before what little air he has left runs out either way.  But as he isn't answering his radio it doesn't seem like he's using the air anyway.”  

Barely pausing for breath, Ianto continued.  “The explosion that buried him and the team he took down there with him looks like it was his own fault, as he appears to have been trying to steal a particularly valuable alien corpse from the storage chambers-”

“Ah, about that-”

Ianto cut him off again quickly, ignoring his attempt to interject.  “Which would make him the second member of UNIT to be caught lying to me today.”  Ianto allowed a faint, sarcastic smile to trace over his lips as he glared at the Colonel.  “Call me paranoid but I suspect you're about to be the third.  Maybe I'm misjudging you but the fact is I have no interest in anything you have to tell me right now.  It might be something I need to know, but right now I don't want to know it.”  Ianto could feel the anger flaring inside him again and stared coldly at the Colonel.  “Until further notice and until our investigation is completed, UNIT personnel are banned from Torchwood sites-”

“Now just you wait a minute young man-”

“Colonel, I've had a really shit day,” Ianto continued hoarsely, “two of my people are in hospital, another is still being hauled out of an elevator shaft, a couple of months work has been completely undone and I've been lied to and treated like a complete idiot by people who were supposed to be my allies.  Now, it's been about a year since that last happened and I am really hoping this isn't becoming an annual tradition.  But suffice to say,” he continued, his voice rising angrily, “do you really think anything you have to say to me right now will make the slightest bit of difference?”

Slightly subdued, a look of begrudging respect on his face, the Colonel shook his head briskly and straightened up as though accepting an order.  “No, I suppose not.”

“Right.”  Ianto nodded brusquely, his anger fading again to bubble beneath the surface.  He knew he would have to let it out soon, one way or another, but for now he blocked it away again, letting it fester and ferment.  Glancing at UNIT's vehicles, he took in the men standing around them.  “Get your men out of here and out of our way and let us do our jobs then.”

“Understood.”  The Colonel gestured for the men to get back to their vehicles, the group obeying and streaming off instantly but the Colonel remained.  “Mr Jones...”  the Colonel lowered his voice and stepped closer.  “For what it's worth, I am sorry for what happened here today.  But there is more going on here than you know and I can promise you, it was not UNIT who caused this.  We need to talk.”

Closing his eyes, Ianto took a deep breath, his curiosity piqued but unable to concentrate enough to care right now.  Blowing his breath out again slowly he looked at the Colonel again and nodded.  “Fine.  Call my office.  Tomorrow.”  As the Colonel walked away Ianto yelled after him brusquely.  “After lunch!”

Watching them go, Ianto could see Mickey pulling faces at the UNIT men and even Andy was pleased to see them go, no doubt interpreting their departure as some great victory.  It was a shame Ianto didn't feel at all victorious, more like a kid who had managed to get one over on the teacher but knew that it wasn't the last of it.  Shrugging it off, he watched them go then strode over to join Mickey.  He and Gwen needed to know what was going on still and whilst it wasn't a conversation he was looking forward to, he wanted to get it over with.

Just a little more work to do.

*******************************************************

Gwen hung up the phone and leaned back against the wall, her eyes closing as she tried to count her blessings.  The fires were finally out, the Hub was secure and locked down again until they wanted to get back in.  They had lost personnel but even though she tried to feel their loss all she could feel was relief that her friends were okay.  The rest of what had happened today would sink in later.

But Martha...  Gwen knew in her heart she had no right to be jealous, the betrayal was all against Ianto instead of her, but even so she couldn't hold back the twisting in her gut.  Jack had chosen to keep both Ianto and her out, after all they had been through, but keep Martha in.  She could understand him maybe not being able to talk to Ianto, but why not her, the tiny cruel voice inside her whispering that it wasn't her who had killed his grandson.

Shaking it off, Gwen looked down the hall to the nursery, the sound of her daughter stirring forcing her own feelings aside and sending a brief wave of shame through her.  They all had sides they kept hidden, sharing them only with certain people.  Just as Rhys had never really understood her Torchwood work, she was fighting hard to keep it away from her new family too.  

Jack must have had his reasons for keeping them away too, for cutting everyone who cared for him out of his life.  There had been a time when she had almost done the same, almost pushed Rhys out of her life because it was too hard to cope with it all, to combine reality and Torchwood.  Luckily she had seen sense, she still had her family here, her life.  She would be okay.  She just wished she could be sure about Ianto too.

Padding softly down the corridor, Gwen pushed open the door and smiled as Harri opened her eyes, snuffling quietly as she woke.  “Hello sweetheart, hello!”  Cooing, she reached out and pulled her daughter into her arms, cuddling her and making faces as she moved over to the rocking chair.  “Hello there beautiful.  Did you have a nice sleep?  Yes?”

Rocking her baby slowly, Gwen tried to ignore the ache inside her that Jack might never meet her, that she might never see him again.  Somehow, despite the long wait, she had never truly thought that he might not come back.  She had pictured telling him about her daughter so many times, but always with a baby in her arms.  But the reality was, Jack would outlive them all and could come back today, tomorrow or in five decades time, when her daughter was fully grown or even had children of her own.  Gwen might never see him again.

Fighting back tears, Gwen held her daughter close and sighed deeply.  “Oh Harri.  Do me a favour sweetheart, and if you ever meet a dashing man in a very old coat, don't ever fall for him.”  Kissing Angharad's forehead, she smiled softly.  “He'll just break your heart.”  As the baby fussed, Gwen laughed and leaned in close, playing.  “Yes he will, oh yes he will!”  Settling down to feed her, she looked into the distance, a hundred memories playing through her mind before she smiled again.  “But it will be worth it.”

Stroking the baby's cheek, she watched as she fed and grinned.  “Oh and if you ever get into any strange blue boxes with strangely dressed young men you will be so grounded young lady...”

**************************************************************

Mickey wrapped the cable around his arm as he walked back to the car, stifling a yawn as he realised the time and hearing his stomach growl as it reminded him he hadn't eaten all day.  This was a hell of a way to work, disasters, explosions and big conspiracies all in one day.  He was out of practice.  Throwing the last of his equipment into the boot, he straightened up and stretched, giving in and yawning widely this time.

“You alright mate?”

Looking round, he relaxed again and smiled at the policeman, nodding as he slammed the boot.  “Yeah, all clear now.  Your guys can let people back in now if you want.”

Shrugging, Andy looked out over the Plass and pulled a face.  “I imagine most of the businesses will have let 

their staff go home already but I'll see who we've got hanging round.  What about you, you heading home now?”

Snorting, Mickey leaned on the car, his hands on his hips as he looked around the Plass.  “Nah, I'm in a hotel so not really in any rush to get back.  Tell you what though, I'm starving, you know any good spots round here to get some proper grub?”

Raising his eyebrows in consideration, Andy folded his arms.  “Depends what you're after.  Tell you what, I'm off duty in half an hour, you give me a lift to the station and if you don't mind waiting for me I'll see if I can't show you a bit of Cardiff's finest.”

“Cheers mate,” Mickey said with a grin which suddenly froze on his face.  “Ah, listen, just so you know, I don't know what Gwen's told you, I mean I may be Torchwood but I'm not-”  He paused, looking down and quickly pulling his hands off his hips and seeming at a loss of where else to put them, waving his hands about in consternation.  “I mean, you're a nice bloke and all, but you're not my-”

“Oh God, no I'm not-”  Andy held his hands out almost as thought trying to ward Mickey off and shook his head quickly.  “No, you're not my type either, I just-  Gwen said you were new here and I thought, you know, be friendly-”

“Friends, yeah, a guy can never have too many mates-  I mean, friends, buddies-”

“Yeah, pals are good-”  Andy stopped and shook his head, an embarrassed grin forming on his face.  “Look, why don't we just get in the car already and never mention this again.”

“Deal,” Mickey agreed, grinning broadly.  Sliding into the car, Mickey looked over as Andy got in and settled into the seat.

“Nice ride.”

“Thanks.”

“So, what do you fancy?  Tell you what, I do know a place that does cracking fish and chips.”

“Sounds good, I love a nice jumbo sausage-  Oh man...”

********************************************************************

Ianto made it all the way back to the offices without remembering any of the drive at all, his mind focusing only on getting there and not on the journey.  It didn't take him long to debrief the technicians and send them home, their lab coats hung up neatly by the door as they scurried away, still gossiping amongst themselves as they left.  He could see in their movements that they were torn between wanting to stay behind and find out what was else going on, correctly guessing that something was still wrong with their boss, and their urge to get away before he changed his mind and took it out on them or worse, cancelled their unexpected day off.

After they were gone, he settled down at his too smooth desk and set to work on the records deleting access codes.  First, Dr Alex Reed was wiped from the system, his records updated as deceased.  He was the first person Ianto had had to do that for since Jack had left.  To his surprise, he didn't feel anything at all as the blue swirls took their newest and shortest lived colleague away, burying him under a virtual six feet of code.

As for Martha...  Ianto methodically removed her higher level access rights, banning her from the Hub and the computer system, leaving nothing but a single basic access to the office so she could get her things.

When he was done, he sat back in his chair and slid open the deep desk drawer on his right, his fingers wrapping around the top of a bottle of vodka Martha had bought him for his birthday.  There wasn't much left, the pair of them having made a small dent in it that very night and then, occasionally, he would let himself have a single shot from the bottle, just to feel the fire of it burn down him, before completing his nightly rituals.  He had almost been trying to ration it, telling himself that Jack would be back before he finished the bottle, ready to tease him and buy him something better than the 37% proof and brewed in Scotland junk that Martha had bought.

Jack had teased him about his drinking vodka before, first about it being vodka at all and then about it being the standard brand that everyone drank.  “If you are going to drink that stuff, you should at least act like an adult instead of a 16 year old kid and drink the proper version,” he had said one night, sliding a bottle of something silver grey wrapped and covered in the strange hieroglyphs of the Cyrillic alphabet across his desk.  He had then poured them both a single shot, raising it up high and looking at Ianto before saying something Ianto couldn't understand and drinking it down in one go.

When questioned, he had claimed it was just a toast, but Ianto hadn't been able to shake the feeling that it was something more than that.  The alcohol had burned on the way down but far smoother than his usual drink, tingling through his whole body and for some reason feeling as though it was settling in his elbows.  

When Jack had started reminiscing about the cold war and a Russian girl called Natalia, Ianto had smiled softly and listened to him talking about the correct way to drink vodka.  Then Jack had started talking about something called hypervodka and the stories had gotten steadily bawdier until Ianto had silenced them with a kiss, determined to create some vodka related stories of his own with Jack instead of hearing about others.

That had been the only time they had drunk together like that though.  Jack didn't tend to drink, sobriety a virtue to counteract all his other vices, and Ianto had tried to hold back too, sticking to the occasional beer after a hard day instead of the all night benders he sometimes craved.  Like swapping his jeans for suits, he swapped nights out on the town for nights in with Jack, adapting himself to better fit his new life here, to better be what Jack needed him to be.

He had given up the clubs and bars and the company of his own generation, dropped rock and metal in favour of Jack's old Glen Miller records, and swapped his comfortable flat for the secrecy of their hidden lair.  Jack had offered something better than alcohol, his arms a new addiction that was as dangerous as any drug Ianto had tried, his kisses numbing the pain as smoothly as any pill.  But Jack was gone.  And without Jack to mould himself to, all that was left was Ianto.

And Ianto needed a drink.

Ianto poured himself a glass, looking deep into the clear liquid and swirling it in the glass.  It was cheap and nasty, it would be warm and he had nothing to eat to go with it, but it would burn and make him shiver and it would do.  He would regret it in the morning but at least he would know he was still alive. Holding it up to the light, he nodded and whispered quietly to himself, the toast one he had always made when Jack insisted he do so, before tossing it back easily.

“To us...”

*************************************************************

Martha pushed her coat sleeves lower as she strode through the darkened Torchwood offices, her face tired and slack from the days efforts.  Johnson would be in hospital for a day or so, her lungs a little battle scarred from the fumes in the hub and what the enigmatic woman had claimed was simply a “pre existing respiratory weakness”, but she would be fine in no time.  

Captain John Hart on the other hand, his arm would be sore for a while but other than aches and bruises he seemed okay, his lungs recovering with a speed she suspected had something to do with either 51st century metabolism or possibly a not quite human ancestor.  His possible concussion didn't seem to worry him at all and he was already well enough to be flirting with the nurses.  One nights observation would be more than enough for him - if he could be persuaded to stay in bed long enough.

As for Dr Reed...  her replacement's disappearance and death hit her like a brick, settling deeper into her stomach with every step.  She had recommended him from the UNIT candidates, his records had been impeccable and there had been nothing to give any indication he would have done something like this.

Except there had been.  She had seen it in his eyes, she had recognised his impetuous competitive streak, his impatience, his envy of her and her position being so much more than her official records could account for her having earned.  She had seen it before, she had known the risks, she should have realised what he would do, she should have done something to stop him, if only Ianto and Tom hadn't-

Been more concerned about her marriage than she was.

It looked as though she was as bad at that as she was at her job then.

Martha headed into her office and gathered up her things, the mess somehow so much more noticeable now that she had to actually do something about it.  The post it notes, the handwritten scrawls everywhere, the coffee mugs and files...

Taking a deep breath, Martha set to work taking everything personal from the space and moving what was left into what she hoped were logical piles.  Human staff, new aliens, weevils, all the folders were colour coded anyway but she knew it would still take whoever had the job next a while to sort it.

It was only as she was packing that she realised something; she hadn't been planning to leave.  For all she had talked to Tom and Ianto about needing a replacement, about wanting to get back to UNIT and London, she hadn't been working as though it was a temporary job.  It had been hers.

And she had thrown it away.  The truth was out now and she had lost everything.  Wiping her eyes, she gathered up the last of her things and shoved them into carrier bags, hoisting them up and wishing that she had handled this better.  Wishing she could just fly away in the TARDIS and come back later, when it had all died down again.  But not this time.  This was her mess and she was going to have to live with it.

If she did see Jack again though, she was going to kill him.

Switching off the lights, she took one last look around the space that had been hers for the past few months and took a deep breath.  Time to start over again.

Closing the door behind her, she made it halfway across the office before the sound of breaking glass coming from Ianto's office made her stop.

********************************************************

Ianto watched the still partly full bottle shatter against the wall, vodka spraying everywhere, and grinned coldly, his hands sweeping his desk clear and scattering papers and alien souvenirs alike. He had been hoping to show all of this to Jack, to show him what a good job he had done, but now there was no need for approval or to show anyone.  This was his now and he could do whatever he bloody well wanted with it and right now he wanted to make a mess.

It took him only a few seconds to cross the room and tip over the filing cabinet, the wood and metal crashing to the floor as a shout came from the doorway.  Spinning round in surprise, he stopped as he saw Martha looking at him, the shock on her face enough to make him hesitate.  

“What the hell are you doing?”

Ianto grinned at her coldly and opened his hands wide, indicating the mess.  “Redecorating.  I'm going for a more authentic Hub look for my office, what do you think?” he asked, grabbing a lump of meteorite he had used as a paperweight and throwing it at the window, laughing humourlessly as it bounced off the reinforced glass.  “Does it look trashed enough yet to match?”

Spotting the label of the vodka bottle on the floor, the thin layer of shattered glass clinging to its glue, she sighed.  “You've been drinking-”

“Just the one actually,” Ianto corrected her, a frown forming on his face as he felt the adrenaline surging through him.  God he missed the old firing range, that had been much more fun than this.  “Good idea though, I should go get more.”

Grabbing his wallet off the floor, he shoved it into his trouser pocket and pushed past Martha, striding through the darkened office as she hurried after him.  “Ianto, wait, we need to talk-”

Cutting her off, he spun round and held out a hand to stop her in her tracks.  “No.  We needed to talk months ago.  Right now, we don't need to talk.  Right now, you need to go and I need to drink.”

“Ianto-”  Martha was too slow as he left the office and headed for the freight elevator, pulling its door shut before Martha could reach it and angrily stabbing at the buttons.  “Ianto, wait!”  Slamming  her hands on the door, she watched as the lift quickly dropped downwards and screamed in frustration.  That elevator was faster than the other one and he usually parked right beside it; there was no real way she could catch him.  She just had to hope he would be okay.

Gathering up her things, Martha hurried into the main elevator and leaned against it's wall, watching in silence as the numbers ticked down, taking her away from Torchwood, possibly forever.

Time to start saying her goodbyes.  Hopefully the rest would go better than this one.

*************************************

Captain John Hart could feel the ache in his shoulder and the patch of matted hair at the back of head felt a little crunchy but, all in all, he had expected a lot worse.  As he watched the nurse move around the bed he grinned to himself and watched the way the hospital uniform tightened over his arse as he bent over.  Male nurses, there was definitely something to be said for sexual equality.  Although he had to agree with Jack on one thing; nurses uniforms in general had definitely peaked in the middle of the last century.  Paper and plastic may well be more hygienic but it lacked the style of the classic uniform.

John tried to look innocent as the nurse stood up, a distinctly disapproving look cast his way, but perhaps with the teeniest hint of encouragement in that scorn.  As the nurse left, John chuckled to himself.  It might be the drugs talking, but he was sure that nurse wanted him too.  Maybe he could get himself on the list for a sponge bath later-

He smiled politely as Martha strode into the room, her face set into a hard stare as she picked up his chart, checking his notes with more than just her usual clinical detachment.  If John didn't know better, he would swear she was avoiding him.

“So, what's the verdict doc?  Are they going to have to cut it off?”

“Only if you stick it somewhere you shouldn't.”  Martha looked up at last and nodded once, content with his results.  “You'll be fine.  Painkillers, a bit of rest, you'll be fine.”

“Great.  How's Johnson?”

“She'll be fine too.  She just needs a bit of time on oxygen to help her breathing.  I'm not sure what she inhaled yet but it seems to have really irritated her lungs.”

Even the mention of it made a tickle creep into John's chest and he had to resist the urge to cough.  “Nasty.  So she won't be up to nursing me back to health any time soon then?”

A small half smile played over Martha's face as she looked at him strangely.  “Maybe you can nurse her back to health instead.  It doesn't always have to be the woman who cares you know.”

Shifting on the pillows John watched her closely, his eyes fixed on her face as she put his chart back, fiddling with the bedcover awkwardly.  Something was definitely bugging her, and if it wasn't their health...  

“Would've thought the boss man would have been to see me by now,” he said casually, fishing for a reaction, “check on the troops and all that.  Young Mickey stuck his head in a little while ago, think he's in the cafeteria or with Johnson now, but no Ianto yet.”  Sniffing slightly, he resisted the urge to smile as he saw her react to Ianto's name.  Definitely Ianto causing trouble then.  “What's he done now then?”

“Nothing,” Martha answered far too quickly.  “He didn't do anything.”  Avoiding his gaze, she straightened his covers again and then sat down on the huge chair beside his bed, staring straight ahead.  “Nothing he didn't have every right to do anyway.”

Sitting up straighter, John wished for a moment he was in a bar or even any other kind of bed instead of a hospital bed for this conversation and looked at her encouragingly.  Nodding, he tried to remember that phrase the shrink on that TV show used to get them to talk, that American one that Johnson liked to watch when she thought he was asleep.

“I'm listening.”

About halfway through her tale, he really wished he hadn't asked.

“And you just let him go off like that?”  Throwing off the blankets, he pulled the few wires and tubes around him out the way and stood up, wobbling for a moment before recovering his balance.

“John, what the hell-” said Martha, jumping up.

“Seriously Martha, and people say I have no people skills.”  Looking in the cupboards he grinned as he found his boots, throwing them onto the bed before frowning as he looked for the rest of his clothes.  “Where the hell is my jacket?”

“John, get back into bed-”

“Oh yeah, right, like out of all the men who haven't listened to you today I'm the one who's actually gonna pay the slightest bit of attention to what you want.”  He strode angrily around the bed, ignoring her protests and pushing her aside to search behind her, finding his jacket and other clothes tucked away safely.

“Don't make me sedate you mister!”  Martha pushed him gently, trying to restrain him without hurting him, but only succeeded in making him sneer back.

“Oh yeah, great idea, sedatives and a concussion, that's really in keeping with your hippo oath thing.”

“Hippocratic, and God help me John, if you-”

Pushing her back into the chair, John grinned evilly as he stood over her, his jacket in his hand as he rifled through the pockets.  Palming a small tube, he put his good left hand on her shoulder to keep her down.  “If I what?  Drug you?  Tie you to the chair?  Gag you so you can shut the fuck up?”  

“You wouldn't dare.”

“Maybe, maybe not.”  Turning his back on her, he rubbed the tube over his lips, squeezing it as he did so.  He grinned before turning back as she tried to stand up and grab him again.  Grabbing her shoulder he pushed her back into the chair again as he kissed her, her struggling fading quickly as the poison rapidly got to work.  Her voice gone, she stared at him mutely as he got to work stripping off his hospital gown one handed.  “That's better.”  Snorting, he found the bag containing the rest of his clothes and shook it out over the bed.  “Bet Tom wishes he'd thought of that.”

As he stripped, her frozen eyes forced to watch every move, he debated for a moment not giving her the antidote, just leaving her there like that.  It was very tempting, but not really necessary.  Besides she had saved his life and whilst he usually didn't have a problem letting no good deed go unpunished it could mess up his plans.  Doing up his trousers with a leer, he strode back over and crouched in front of her, running his good hand across her face slowly.  “You just don't get it, do you sweetheart?  That boy, Ianto, he doesn't trust anyone.  Not really.  Not his family, not his friends, not any of us.  Except you.  He trusted you.   And Jack.”

Stroking her braided hair back over her shoulder, he shifted to grip her neck lightly, the move intimate and threatening at the same time as his thumb drifted down her chin to press against her throat.  “You both betrayed him.  And now he's got no one.”  Smiling coldly, he looked up into her eyes and leaned in close, his body pressing against hers awkwardly as he whispered in her ear.  “Except me.”

He pulled back slowly, standing again and grabbing his clothes, wincing as he took off the sling and wriggled his way into his t shirt and jacket before turning his attention to his boots.  “So, I'd better get to him before he does something I might regret later.”

Dressed at last, he looked at the doctor and sighed.  It wouldn't do anyone any good if she died here; Ianto might regret his anger if she died and that was no good, John needed him furious and alone, not remorseful.  Holding the tube loosely, he flipped it in his hand and squeezed, a small needle point emerging from the end, and stabbed it into the side of Martha's neck, her eyes screaming even if her mouth couldn't.

“Antidote,” he reassured her coldly.  “Can't have you dying on us, now can we doctor?  You should be able to move in, oh, about sixty seconds or so.”  Shrugging his jacket higher on his good shoulder, he leaned over her again and kissed her forehead, feeling the slight tension in her skin as her control returned.  Time to go.  “See you in hell, Martha Jones.”

Leaving her in the chair, he headed for the exit.  The wait was over, it was time to go get Ianto Jones.

One way or another.

************************************************

Mickey turned the corner, a coffee in his hand, and frowned as he saw John walking away.  “John?”  

“She'll be fine in a minute,” John yelled back without breaking his stride, “just leave her to it.”

He started to ask more but a small sound from John's room drew his attention and, hurrying in, he swore as he saw Martha in the chair, looking as though she was glued to it.  “Let me guess, some sort of lipstick thing?”  Taking her muffled squeal for a yes, Mickey rolled his eyes.  “Yeah, Gwen warned me John had one of those.  Bloody 51st century tech.  Rose found a red one on the TARDIS once and tried it on, thinking it was just normal lipstick.”  

Grinning, he leaned back on the bed and took a sip of his coffee, the tremors in Martha's hands a give away confirming that John had been telling the truth and she was on her way back without his help.  Best to just let her come out of it on her own then.  “She snogged me and five minutes later I was running naked through the TARDIS garden thinking the plants were talkin' to me.”  He frowned a little as the memory returned to him fully.  “Actually, come to think of it at least one of them could talk so that may not have been the lipstick-”

Martha twitched her feet, her hips lurching awkwardly up from the chair like something out of a horror movie, her movements stiff and unnatural.  “Feeling better already?”

“Antidote,” she snarled through her teeth, her muscles spasming as feeling returned.  “Git.”

“Me or 'im?” Mickey asked unconcerned, watching as she finally managed to stumble to her feet and lurched towards the door.  “Take it steady, better give it time to work properly-”  As she left,  he shrugged and leaned back against the bed.  Ianto had already filled him in earlier on her actions and he was finding it hard to be completely sympathetic right now.  

Still, he should really make sure she was alright.

Pushing up off the bed, he strolled after her, watching her wobble down the corridor and smiled slightly.  She had balls though, he had to give her that much.  It would take a hell of a man to be able to cope with her and try as he might he just didn't see it being Tom.  He liked the guy, but he deserved better and she needed...  more.  Someone to share not just her life but the whole universe with.

She needed a different kind of Doctor.  Or, more accurately, to get over the different kind of Doctor before any mere human stood a chance with her.

And helping women get over the Doctor, well, that was something Mickey Smith did have experience in.  Following her out, he sipped his coffee and couldn't help but notice just how cute she looked, even filthy and tired and half drugged as she was.  He didn't let himself think any more than that though.  She was not only married, she was a former companion and no human could ever hold a candle to the Doctor, he knew that.  If she was uncharted territory then the map should say 'Here there be Dragons'.  No sense even thinking about it.

No harm in looking though...

******************************************************

Captain John Hart pushed his way out of the hospital angrily, his shoulder stinging and his body aching despite the slight fuzz of the painkillers in his system.  But he didn't care.  It took him just a moment to pick a car he liked the look of and break in, overriding the locks with ease and sliding himself into the drivers seat.  He could hear Martha shouting at him as he started it up but ignored her, focusing only on the road ahead.

He didn't know where he was heading exactly but he had picked up more about the young Mr Jones than he knew over the past few months.  A few of Ianto's favourite haunts sprung to mind, mostly quiet and discreet places suitable for drinking heavily and avoiding trouble.  But there were a couple that offered more action, in all senses of the word, and he had a feeling that they would be where Ianto was.

With any luck he could find the kid before he got into too much trouble.

*********************************************

As she watched the car speed away, Martha sank slowly to the stone step of the hospital, her anger fading and giving in to despair at last.  She didn't even notice the coat wrapping itself around her shoulders until Mickey sat down beside her.  

“So what's all that about?”  he asked.

“Just a big mistake-  Lend me your phone!”

“What?”

“I need to call Ianto but he's been ignoring my number, lend me your phone.”

Mickey slid his hand into his pocket and pulled out his phone then shrugged.  “You can try but his phones off.    I was after him just a few minutes ago to pass a message from Johnson, goes straight to voicemail.”

“And as soon as he hears my voice he'll erase it.”  Balling her fists and looking out over the dark car park, she growled.  “Dammit!  I need to warn him about John.”

“e's a big boy Martha, he can handle himself.  Especially about John.  No offence love, but I think he knows what Johns like more than any of us.”

“Let's hope so.”  Sighing heavily, she banged her head against her knees.

“So, not the best day all in all then?”

Laughing bitterly, she rested her head in her hands and avoided his gaze.  “The worst.  I've lost my job, my friends, my husband and I've got nothing.”

Raising one eyebrow curiously, Mickey looked at her with a touch of sympathy at last. “Interesting order you put those in.  You ask me, you put job and friends before husband and you're better off losing the marriage anyway.”

“What would you know?” Martha sat up and looked at him angrily, shaking off his coat and standing up. 

“Been there, done that.”  Rising to his feet, Mickey took back his coat without comment and shrugged.  “Look, I'm taking one of the Land Rovers back to London in the morning to start the next lot of upgrades, no sense me sticking round here, only get in the way of the clean up, 'specially as Ianto's shuttin' down for a few days.  You want a lift to your folks, I'll be outside your place at eight.  So, you got a choice.”  

Walking down the steps, Mickey stopped at the bottom and looked up at her standing lost in the dark.  “You can stay 'ere and feel sorry for yourself or you can try and make something good out of it and fight.”  Strolling off into the night, Mickey put his coat back on and yelled over his shoulder.  “Usually works for me.”

**********************************************

Ianto could feel the numbing embrace of the alcohol in his body and ignored the burning at the back of his throat that was threatening to become more.  He knew his limits and he wasn't quite there yet.

A year.  A whole year of waiting and giving Jack space, of pushing aside all his own desires to help Jack recover, of atoning for what he had done.  A year of sleeping alone, with only the nightmares and ghosts flickering in the edges of his vision to keep him company.  A year of hoping Jack was okay, picturing the worst and wishing he could be there to help him through it.  A year of efficient wanks in cold showers and beating up the occasional Weevil as his only release. A year of hoping it would be worth it, of thinking that no matter how hard it got at least Jack would never know how much it was hurting him.

Except Jack had known.  Everything.  Martha had betrayed him, laying all his secrets bare and casting them to the wind.  All those times he had told her the truth, sought her help in getting through the hard times, she had been spying on him and telling Jack how he was, how he was coping, how much he missed him...

Maybe that was why Jack hadn't come back.

Ianto had always consoled himself with the thought that Jack would have to come back eventually, even if only to make sure they were alright or to find out about Gwen's baby.  He would have to come back, simple curiosity would bring him back to Earth and then, even if he had come back to say goodbye, at least Ianto would have a chance to talk to him, to see him one more time, to persuade him to stay.  Hell, even some sort of closure and permission to get on with his life and escape this limbo would have done.

But Jack had always known what was going on.  He had known when Ianto was sick, when they had been forced into hiding, all the hard times they had been through and not one of them had been enough to bring him back.

Ianto wasn't enough to come back for.

His hand shook at the thought that this was it, this was the rest of his life, struggling to get through day by day and never again feeling as he had when Jack had been by his side.  He would survive, he would be just fine without Jack; maybe he would even find some nice girl to settle down with and do everything his parents had hoped for from him, the wedding, the 2.4 kids, some cousins for David and Mica.  

Or maybe a nice boy instead, someone a century or two closer to his own age, someone he could be the more experienced one with for a change, someone who actually liked the same music he did or had seen the same TV shows as a kid.  Someone he had something in common with.  Someone with no baggage.  Someone he could actually grow old with.  That would be nice.

But it wouldn't be Jack.

A shudder ran through him, violently shaking him as his body reacted viscerally to the thought that he might never see Jack again.  Never hear his voice or feel the touch of his hands, never feel again for the rest of his life as complete and himself and alive as he had when he had been with Jack.

Pushing away from the bar, Ianto headed for the bathroom, needing to cool down and just breathe.  The room was mercifully clean, at least in comparison to some of the places in the city, and the water splashing out of the tap was cool.  Wetting his hands, Ianto fought back the tremors running through him and splashed the water onto his face.  Leaning heavily on the edge of the sink he rested his forehead on the tiled wall, the coolness of the ceramic soothing him.

He heard the door swing open again but didn't look round as the two blokes walked in, simply pushing back and concentrating on washing his hands, pretending nothing was wrong.

“So what happened next?  Did you give him a piece of your mind?”

“Too bloody right.  I told him, he can be gay all he likes but not in that job, he's not bloody teaching my son.  I don't want my lad ending up a fucking fruit too.”

“Nice one!”

Ianto glanced sideways, taking in the man and his mate as they laughed amongst themselves.  He had come across this before, the attitude, the insults, the ignorance.  Usually he would just let it go, but tonight he had the urge to do something about it.

A slow grin spread over his face, no warmth behind it, just pure venom as he turned to face the pair.  Just because they weren't aliens didn't mean the world didn't need protecting from them...

**********************************************************

Captain John Hart pushed past the steady stream of people hurrying from the bar and sighed to himself as he made it in, standing to one side as he took in the sight before him.

Ianto was drunk, very drunk, there was no doubt about that, his moves not as smooth as they usually were but he was still putting up one hell of a fight.  John watched as Ianto spun on one leg, kicking out swiftly to take out one attacker before punching another one back, sending him sprawling onto the floor.  

He could see the grimace on Ianto's face as he stood upright again and the way his bad knee was bent so most of his weight was on his good leg.  He could see every emotion, raw and intense on Ianto's face as he fought, others coming in to try and restrain him and ending up pushed back easily.  The kid was unstoppable and fierce and completely open and unguarded for the first time since he'd known him.

“About bloody time,” John whispered under his breath before stepping forward into the crowd and pushing his way through, warily guarding his bad right arm.  “Ianto!”

Ianto looked round at the sound of his name, squinting in confusion into the mass of faces then frowning as he spotted John.  Seizing the distraction, someone jumped onto Ianto's back, an arm wrapping itself around his throat and pulling him backwards.  John winced, then smirked as Ianto bent forward and flipped his assailant over his head, slamming him into the floor.  But the effort was starting to show and Ianto couldn't help stumbling, dropping to his knees on the hard floor and his face twisting in pain.

Time to end this.

John emerged from the throng and quickly made his way to Ianto's side, pulling his gun as he moved.  “Back off!”

The others looked up, taking in the weapon, and began to raise their hands in surrender, giving in and hastily running away with the rest of the crowd.  Smirking, John waited as Ianto climbed to his feet again and watched as the bar emptied out faster now, the cries of “Gun!” motivating the masses to finally run away.  Ianto was breathing heavily, his lip bleeding and his arm wrapped protectively across his ribs as he tried to stand up straight.

“Spoilsport.  I..  Could've... taken them.”

“I don't doubt it eye candy, but why mess up that pretty face of yours any more than you need to?”  He watched out of the corner of his eye as Ianto struggled to stand upright, one hand sliding down to grasp his bad thigh tightly.  “Not to mention how pissed off Martha will be if you mess up all her hard work.”

“Screw Martha,” Ianto spat back angrily.

“Anytime, anyplace love.”  John waited until the last people ran from the bar and holstered his gun, his good hand on his hip as he regarded the empty tables and chairs and abandoned bar.  “But as she's not here I'll settle for a drink.”  Hooking his arm under Ianto's, he dragged him over to the bar and helped him onto one of the stools.

“Suits me,” Ianto slurred tiredly as he collapsed over the bar, his normally smart appearance long gone, stubble dusting his face and his loose shirt sleeves dipping unnoticed into a pool of beer on the wooden surface.  “How'd you find me?”

Shrugging, John headed behind the bar and ran his fingers over the bottles as though playing eeny meeny miny mo to pick one.  “Easy enough.  You're a creature of habit, Ianto Jones.”  Selecting an expensive vodka, John grinned and pulled it off the optic, clearing the neck of the bottle and raising it to his lips.

“Habit.  Sounds about right.”  Ianto sighed and accepted the bottle when John offered it, drinking deeply.  A little of the spirit escaped his drunken mouth and slid along his chin without him even feeling it.  He did feel the sting of his cut lip though and raised his fingers to his lips quickly, rubbing them.  “Reliable, predictable, trusting Ianto.”

“I dunno, you still surprise me occasionally.”

“Really?”  Ianto slid him the bottle and leaned heavily on his hands, his hair and shirt messed up from the fight and the slight trace of stubble on his chin scratching against his palm.  “You always surprise the hell out of me, but not as much as Johnson I guess.”

John laughed and almost choked as he sipped from the bottle, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.  “Johnson?  Yeah, she's something else.”

“What do you see in her?”

Leaning across the bar, John pressed the vodka back into Ianto's fingers and watched him drink, a small smile on his face.  “She's...  got stamina.”

Laughing, Ianto took another deep gulp, his head starting to swim with the alcohol as he reached his own tolerance level - and passed it without even pausing for breath.  Lowering the bottle again, he shook his head slowly, his accent a little stronger than usual.  “Now there was a mental image I didn't need, that's almost as bad as the time I found out Gwen was sleeping with Owen.”

“She did?  Gwen and the lanky doctor bloke?”  Raising his eyebrows in surprise, John returned to the row of bottles and picked out some tequila for himself, giving up on the idea of getting the vodka back off Ianto.  “Good for Gwen.  I always suspected she was a bit of a goer, maybe I should have tried harder myself.”

“Good luck,” Ianto nursed the bottle as he tilted his head, resting on his shoulder tiredly.  “She fancies Jack.”

“Don't we all mate,” John answered quietly, heading back around the bar and pulling up the seat next to Ianto.  “And don't he bloody know it.”

“I'll drink to that.”  Ianto took another drink and loosened his collar more, his tie missing in action somewhere during the day and his shirt buttons torn in places.  He paused as he lowered the bottle to the bar, lost in thought as the alcohol whirled through his system.  “I can't remember what his smile looks like,” he admitted finally, his voice low.  “I could tell you in great detail about his arse, or his prick, or even his chest-”

“Does he still have those bloody freckles?” John asked curiously and Ianto laughed, nodding furiously.

“Yep, you can play dot to dot on his chest.”  Ianto frowned for a moment then smirked.  “I did once, with a red biro, I actually managed to find a pattern that looked like my name was written on his chest in freckles.”

“Nice one.”

“Was fine until we got called out for a Weevil attack, Jack ripped his shirt as usual and Tosh saw...”  Ianto trailed off and took another drink.  “I could tell you exactly what he looks like when he comes, but not how he looks when he's happy, I just can't remember.  What does that say about me?”

“That you're human and he's been off sulking for far too long?” John suggested softly, wrapping his fingers around the neck of his own bottle slowly but not drinking, just keeping Ianto company.

“I don't even dream about him any more,” Ianto murmured drunkenly, slamming the almost empty bottle back down onto the bar and wincing as it threatened to topple over.  He slipped lower on the bar, his arm outstretched across the wood and his head resting on it as exhaustion caught up with him.  “Nightmares, yeah, but none of those dreams, none of the...”  He trailed off, frowning as he tried to think of the words.

“The good ones?”  John suggested with an amused smile.

“Yeah, the good ones.  And it's not like it's 'cause I can't remember him, because I do, I just...”

John looked at him carefully, not used to this sort of conversation.  They usually drank in silence and Jack was rarely mentioned, a ghost hanging between them both.  If they spoke at all it tended to be about work or safe topics.  This was...  a little uncomfortable.  Leaning over, John brushed Ianto's stray hair back out of his face, checking he was still awake.  His eyes were closed but at the touch they opened again, staring without focusing at John.

“I dream of you though.”

John pulled back a little in surprise, wondering exactly how drunk Ianto now was to let that slip.  “That so?”

“Uh huh.”  Ianto sounded sleepy but his eyes suddenly locked on John's, bright and alert.  “I dream of all the things I want to do to you, the ways I want to hurt you-”

John snorted and returned to his bottle.  Not exactly what he had in mind.

“-the ways I want you to hurt me-”

Although that was certainly closer.  Lowering the bottle untouched, he looked down at Ianto, collapsed over the bar.

“-the ways I want you to touch me.”  Ianto blinked slowly, the move looking almost painful and John noticed his right eye was starting to swell a little.  The kid would have a hell of a shiner by day break.  “I dream about you and me, about taking you up on that offer and just...”  His eyes closed again and Ianto laughed bitterly.  “I dream of you, of bloody film stars and even the girl from the newsagents, but not Jack.  Even when I get myself off I can't picture him any more, it hurts too much.”

John sighed and slid the bottle away from Ianto, putting it out of harms way.  Too drunk then.

“I don't even like you.  I don't even know you really.  You're a lying, self centred, arrogant...  and...  and you have funny cheeks.”

Laughing, John slid off the stool and wrapped an arm around Ianto, dragging him to sit upright.  Time to quit this party.  “Hey, I've had a lot of compliments on my bone structure, you're just odd.”  His bad arm was not much use to him but he managed to just about get Ianto to stand up, his weight resting across John's back as a sleepy arm draped over him in return.

“I am aren't I?”  Ianto sighed, then winced as he put weight on his bad leg.  “I'm a mess.  And I'm getting myself off thinking of someone other than Jack.  What does that make me?  What does it mean?”

Shrugging, John dragged them both towards the door, hoping that the local police were sticking to their usual non existent response times.  The gun should have put off the local boys and the armed police weren't exactly quick round here.  

“Ianto Jones, I'll tell you what it bloody well means.  It means you're in love with Jack but it hurts so much to think about what you can't have you picture someone else.”  He manoeuvred them awkwardly around a table and winced as Ianto held onto his bad shoulder, the ache and bruises from his premature burial still very much present.  “It also means you're human.  And horny.”

Ianto laughed and held on tight to the braiding on John's jacket as they sidestepped some abandoned coats on the way to the door.  “Sounds good when you say it.”

“And,” John added quickly, the exit just in front of them at last.  “It means you secretly fancy me rotten and want to get into my pants.”

“That would really piss Jack off...”

“Yep,” John nudged at the door with his foot and was caught off guard as Ianto's hand slid up his body, grabbing his face none too gently and forcing him to look at Ianto.

“Kiss me.”

John hesitated, although he wasn't sure why at first.  He'd been waiting for this for ages, his slow seduction a game, patience easy when he suspected the prize was worth the wait.  And it wasn't like he would feel any guilt about taking advantage of a drunken Ianto, it wasn't his problem, it was Ianto's.  It wasn't like he hadn't been hoping for something like this ever since that first kiss; Ianto and Johnson were the only things really keeping him here, that and the money.  And the kid was right, it would piss Jack off, and that was always something that appealed to Captain John Hart.

So what was he waiting for?

“Nope,” he hissed softly, the words almost sticking in his throat.  He was definitely going soft.  “We had a deal, remember?  You have to kiss me first.”

Ianto's hand softened, lying flat on John's jaw, and he stood up straighter, bringing himself up to John's level properly.  Leaning in close, he smiled just a little and let his thumb drift over John's lips, as though testing he was really there.

And then, in the empty bar, aching from too many bruises and scars, both inside and out, Ianto kissed him.

*******************************************************

Doctor Tom Milligan unlocked the door to their - his, she had barely even lived here and probably never would now - flat and dropped his bag, groping round in the dark for the light switch.  The flat was silent and he welcomed the solitude as he made his way through it slowly, heading for the lounge.  Maybe some late night TV would help him relax.  Maybe then he might forget for long enough to get some sleep.

Turning on the light, he jumped at the sight of the man sitting patiently on their couch, as though it was the most ordinary place in the world to be.  “What the...  Who the bloody hell are you?”

Tom could feel his fists tighten automatically at the sight, afraid of this thief or whatever he was, and tensed as the man stood up with a smile, his hands held out non threateningly.  “Hi, didn't mean to make you jump.  It's Tom right?  We met once, at the wedding, although you probably won't remember that, after all there was quite enough going on that day-”

“What are you doing in my house and who the fuck are you?”  The voice was sort of familiar but Tom was beyond being polite, especially to any of Martha's friends; he was losing his marriage, he'd been lied to, manipulated and used and he was sick of it.  Stepping closer, he watched as the man held his ground, his smile fading slightly as a serious look came over his face.  He was in what seemed to be a kind of uniform and had an American accent; possibly he was someone from UNIT, but Tom didn't care.  This was his home.

“I'm sorry about the intrusion, I just need to find Martha.  Francine said she'd called to say something about coming back to London, and I figured I'd wait for her here.”  He smiled slightly sheepishly.  “I wasn't expecting anyone else to get here first.”

“Either you start making sense in the next five minutes or I'm calling the police.”

“Hey, it's okay, just call Francine or Tish, they'll vouch for me, honest.”  The stranger lowered his arms slowly and held out his hand, grinning winningly as he nodded to Tom.  “I'm Captain Jack Harkness.”

“Captain...  Jack?”  Tom looked the strange man up and down, his mind finally connecting the voice to the name to the man before him.  “You're Jack?!”

Jack continued to hold his hand out, his smile broadening a little at Tom's reaction.  “You've heard of me then?”

Out of all the responses he might have been expecting, the punch that connected with his jaw a second later wasn't one of them.

********************************************************

Ianto Jones awoke slowly, his mind refusing to function as he felt the throbbing behind his eyelids as the day light reached them.  He was dying, that had to be the answer.  He hadn't felt this bad since his brush with a dose of Albarian flu back at Torchwood One.  His head was one solid mass of pain and his stomach-

He was going to be sick.

Lurching unsteadily to his feet, Ianto was vaguely aware he was naked as he hurried to the bathroom, staggering as he barged through the door and dropped to his knees.  It wasn't until he was finished, leaning back against the side of the bath with his stomach spasming painfully and his head pounding, that he even realised the shower was running.  

Dragging himself to his knees again, Ianto crawled over to the sink, rinsing his mouth out quickly before using the edge of the sink to stand up, shakily moving towards the blurred shadow behind the shower curtain. Taking a deep breath, he pulled it back, his eyes locking onto the all too familiar but completely unexpected naked man standing underneath the spray, his back to Ianto at first but at the sound of the curtain he turned-

“Eye candy!  There you are, was wondering when you were going to get up!”

Dropping the curtain, Ianto turned his back on the shower and closed his eyes tight.

Shit.


End file.
